Resources · n8n integration

n8n Schedule Trigger nodeConfigure Schedule Trigger in n8n.

The n8n Schedule Trigger node is the clock your workflows run on. It opens a workflow at a fixed moment instead of waiting for an outside event, and its 12 parameters cover everything from a few seconds apart to a custom cron expression. Handy for reports, syncs and clean-ups on a routine.

Try the Schedule Trigger node on n8nSee the 12 parameters

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Why automate

What does the n8n Schedule Trigger node actually do?

The Schedule Trigger node starts a workflow at fixed times, the way the cron utility does on a Unix machine. It sits at the very beginning of the workflow, takes no input, and fires on the trigger rules you give it: every so many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or months, or on a cron expression you write yourself. Add several trigger rules and the same workflow runs on several schedules.

Three jobs cover most of what this node is used for. The first is the recurring report: every weekday at the same hour, a workflow reads a sheet, counts what changed and drops a message in a channel. Set Trigger Interval to days, pick the hour, and the rest of the workflow does the work. The Google Sheets node reads the rows, Slack posts the summary.

The second is polling, which is the habit of asking a system at a regular beat whether anything is new, because that system has no way to tell you itself. A few minutes between runs is usually the right rhythm here. Pair it with Gmail to sweep an inbox, or with HTTP Request when the API you need has no dedicated node in n8n.

The third is maintenance nobody watches: an archive on the first of the month, a nightly export, a quarterly clean-up. Months between triggers plus a day of the month covers it, and the workflow runs whether or not anyone is logged in.

Two things to know before you rely on it. A scheduled workflow only runs once it is published, and the schedule starts counting from the moment you publish, not from midnight. Change the interval on a published workflow and nothing moves until you unpublish and publish a new version. The same goes for variables used inside the node: their values are read at publish time.

The other one is time zones. The node fires in the instance time zone, which is set on n8n Cloud in the instance settings and through the GENERIC_TIMEZONE environment variable when you self-host. A single workflow can override it in its own Settings tab. If a job lands an hour off twice a year, that setting is where to look. Our n8n review goes into how the two hosting modes differ, and the n8n training covers scheduling in practice.

Parameters

Which Schedule Trigger parameter does what?

The Schedule Trigger node has 12 parameters. For each one: the node as you configure it in n8n, what the parameter changes, and our field notes.

01

Trigger Interval

rule.field

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Everything else in the node hangs off this one selector. It sets the unit of time the schedule counts in, and n8n redraws the panel underneath to match.

Key parameters

  • Trigger Interval: choose seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or months, and the matching fields appear below it.
  • Custom (Cron): the cronExpression choice hides those fields and asks for one cron expression instead.
Use cases
start from the widest unit that still fits the job. A quarterly archive and an inbox sweep end up on two very different panels.
02

Seconds Between Triggers

rule.secondsInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Counts in seconds between two runs, for the rare workflow that cannot wait a full minute.

Key parameters

  • Seconds Between Triggers: the number of seconds between each workflow trigger, and the hint is clear about the range, 1-59. Anything longer belongs in the minutes interval.
Use cases
a queue that has to be drained fast, or a device reading you cannot afford to miss. Keep in mind that every tick is a full execution stored on the instance, so a value near the floor fills the execution list quickly.
03

Minutes Between Triggers

rule.minutesInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Most operational schedules live here. The workflow wakes up every few minutes, checks a source and goes back to sleep.

Key parameters

  • Minutes Between Triggers: the number of minutes between each workflow trigger, in range 1-59. Enter 5 and the trigger runs every five minutes.
Use cases
polling a shared mailbox for new tickets, or refreshing a status board while the team is working. Divide evenly into an hour when you want the runs to land on tidy times.
04

Hours Between Triggers

rule.hoursInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Once an hour, or once every few hours, suits anything a human updates by hand during the day.

Key parameters

  • Hours Between Triggers: the number of hours between each workflow trigger, in range 1-23.
Use cases
a pipeline sync that would be noisy every minute and stale once a day. Enter 6 and the node runs four times around the clock; add the minute past the hour to keep it clear of the busy top of the hour.
05

Days Between Triggers

rule.daysInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

A daily job, or one every other day, sits on this field, and the hour and minute fields decide exactly when it lands.

Key parameters

  • Days Between Triggers: the number of days between each workflow trigger, in range 1-31.
Use cases
the nightly export that has to be done before the office opens, or a reminder that goes out every second day. Leave it at 1 for a plain daily run and set the hour instead of chasing the interval.
06

Weeks Between Triggers

rule.weeksInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Weekly rhythms map onto this field, which would run every week unless you say otherwise, and the weekday selection says which day of that week.

Key parameters

  • Weeks Between Triggers: would run every week unless specified otherwise, so 2 gives a run every other week.
Use cases
the Monday recap sent before the team meeting, or a fortnightly invoice reminder. Pick one weekday, not four, unless you really want the workflow four times a week.
07

Months Between Triggers

rule.monthsInterval

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Long cycles go here. The field would run every month unless specified otherwise, and a value of 3 turns it into a quarterly schedule.

Key parameters

  • Months Between Triggers: would run every month unless specified otherwise.
Use cases
the monthly billing summary, the quarterly archive of last period's records, the yearly cleanup that everyone forgets. Pair it with the day of the month, since without one the run date is not something you want to guess at.
08

Trigger at Day of Month

rule.triggerAtDayOfMonth

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Pins the run to a date rather than a rhythm, and appears once the interval is counted in months.

Key parameters

  • Trigger at Day of Month: the day of the month to trigger, from 1 to 31. The hint spells out the catch: if a month doesn't have this day, the node won't trigger.
Use cases
closing the books on day 1, or billing on day 28 so that February behaves like every other month. Picking a late date is how a monthly job quietly skips a month.
09

Trigger on Weekdays

rule.triggerAtDay

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Ticks the days of the week the node is allowed to fire on, and it accepts several at once.

Key parameters

  • Trigger on Weekdays: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, each one a checkbox rather than a single choice.
Use cases
a stand-up prompt from Monday to Friday and nothing over the weekend, or a backup that only runs on Sunday. Every day you tick is one more run, so the count of boxes is the count of executions per week.
10

Trigger at Hour

rule.triggerAtHour

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Says which hour of the day the run happens, as a dropdown rather than a free number field.

Key parameters

  • Trigger at Hour: the hour of the day to trigger, listed from Midnight through the morning hours, Noon, and on to 11pm.
Use cases
a report waiting in the channel when the team logs in, or a heavy sync parked at Midnight when nothing else is competing for the instance. Read the hour as instance time, not as the reader's local time.
11

Trigger at Minute

rule.triggerAtMinute

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Finishes the timing by saying how far past the hour the run happens.

Key parameters

  • Trigger at Minute: the minute past the hour to trigger, from 0 to 59.
Use cases
offsetting one workflow from another so two heavy jobs don't fight over the same instant. When a dozen schedules all sit on 0, spreading them across the hour is the cheapest fix there is for a sluggish minute at the top of every hour.
12

Expression

rule.expression

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

When the interval fields cannot describe the schedule, this one field takes a cron expression, the compact line of asterisks that Unix schedulers have used for decades.

Key parameters

  • Expression: the placeholder shows the shape, eg. 0 15 * 1 sun, and the hint gives the six fields in order, Second, Minute, Hour, Day of Month, Month, Day of Week.
Use cases
office hours only, or a run on the first of four specific months. Write it on crontab guru first, then paste it in, and drop the seconds column before you check it there.
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FAQ

Schedule Trigger in n8n: common questions

01Is the Schedule Trigger node included in n8n?
Yes. It is a core node, shipped with n8n, so there is nothing to install and nothing extra to pay on the n8n side. It works the same on n8n Cloud, the hosted offer run by n8n, and on a self-hosted instance under the Community Edition and its Sustainable Use licence. A workflow built on one runs identically on the other. The only practical difference is where you set the time zone the schedule follows: on Cloud it is an instance setting, while a self-hosted instance reads the GENERIC_TIMEZONE environment variable.
02What do you need to set up before the Schedule Trigger works?
Nothing on the account side. This node has no credential, the stored connection details other nodes need, and no Authentication selector at all, because it talks to no outside service. You open it, add a trigger rule, and it is configured. What it does need is a published workflow: while you are editing, a test execution only listens once, and the schedule runs in production only after you save and publish. Keep in mind that the countdown starts at the moment you publish, so a workflow set to every two hours and published at half past will fire at half past.
03What are the limits of the n8n Schedule Trigger node?
It fires on time, and that is all it does: it carries no data about why it ran, and the workflow after it has to go and fetch whatever it needs. Intervals are bounded by field, seconds and minutes accept 1 to 59, hours 1 to 23, and days 1 to 31. Changes are the real trap. A new interval on a published workflow takes effect only once you unpublish and publish a new version, and variables used in the node are evaluated at publish time, so editing a variable afterwards changes nothing until you republish. A day of month that some months don't have simply skips those months.
04Interval fields or a custom cron expression?
Use the interval fields for anything you can say in one sentence: every ten minutes, every day at 9am, the 1st of every quarter. They are readable by the next person who opens the workflow, and they validate themselves. Switch to Custom (Cron) when the schedule has a shape the fields cannot hold, such as every hour between morning and evening only, or four named months in the year. The cost is legibility, so write the expression on crontab guru, check it there without the seconds column, and leave a note in the workflow about what it means.
05n8n or Make for scheduled workflows?
Both run workflows on a clock, so the choice comes down to hosting, data and cost. Make is hosted by Make, with no self-hosting option, and bills by the operation, which means a schedule that fires often is a schedule you pay for often. n8n runs on Cloud or on your own server, so a workflow polling every few minutes costs you the machine rather than a per-run price, and the data stays where you put it. Make's visual builder is friendlier on day one. n8n gives you expressions and code when a schedule turns into real logic.
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