Where is my crontab file?

Question

I want to edit my crontab file to schedule a script. Where do I find it?

spkane · Answer 1 · 2022-01-04T17:43:07.040

39

In Mac OS X Lion the user crontabs are stored in /var/at/tabs. In the past they were located in /var/cron/tabs.

You should use crontab -e to interact with these in general, but knowing the location is useful for when you want to restore them from a backup of your disk, or something similar.

Updated 2022-01:

/var is a link to /private/var/.
/usr/lib/cron is a link to /var/at.

The real primary directory is /private/var/at with the crontab files being stored in /private/var/at/tabs

edited Jan 04 '22 at 17:43

answered May 19 '12 at 05:09

spkane

739

In Snow Leopard, the user crontabs are stored in /var/cron/tabs, as well. – Jack Humphries Nov 22 '14 at 16:22
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On my mac (v10.11, el capitan) I found it in /private/var/at/tabs/. I used find / -iname *cron*. – AlexMA Aug 26 '16 at 15:04
AlexMA is correct, and on 10.12 (and above) you may need to become 'root' to have permission to access these tables, which have usernames. I use 'sudo bash' to become 'root', and 'exit' when I'm done. – Dickster Oct 09 '19 at 18:15
Apparently on newer versions, crontabs are stored under: /usr/lib/cron/tabs. Although, you need root permission to view the contents of that folder. – GDP2 Dec 30 '21 at 20:42
All these files are headlined with # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall – geotheory May 03 '22 at 13:54

score 21 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 04 '10 at 12:57

21

If you don't want to use launchd, you can edit your crontab as you would do on any unix systems :

crontab -e

Or, you can use a GUI software like CronniX.

answered Sep 04 '10 at 12:57

Studer

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And if you want to see your crontab content use crontab -l – Ermiar Sep 04 '10 at 13:06
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I would highly recommend CronniX. It provides a much (much!) easier way of setting up cronjobs. – daviesgeek Nov 10 '11 at 07:52
answering a different question – Lloyd Apr 02 '22 at 21:24
@Lloyd I would note the OP thinks that this HAS answered the question so they have explicitly said that this DOES answer the question – mmmmmm Apr 03 '22 at 09:34

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 04 '22 at 18:02

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It should be noted that if you aren't accustomed to using vim (the default crontab editor) then you can specify your editor as follows:

VISUAL=nano crontab -e

edited Jan 04 '22 at 18:02

nohillside

100,768

answered Jun 25 '19 at 20:10

Josh Correia

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score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 21 '17 at 12:33

5

The OS X way is to use launchctl to run jobs at a time.

For ease of use there are GUIs called Launch Control and Lingon.

edited Sep 21 '17 at 12:33

oa-

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answered Sep 04 '10 at 10:48

mmmmmm

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answering a different question – Lloyd Apr 02 '22 at 21:23
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@Lloyd - The question is how to schedule a script . crontab is just how you do that on many Unixes but on macOS you use launchctl – mmmmmm Apr 03 '22 at 09:32
read your answer again and ask whether it answers "Where is my crontab file?".. that's the original question and my question too. – Lloyd Apr 03 '22 at 10:38
The answer is you don't do that on macOS you use another method. The end result is scheduling a script and that is what matter Using crontab is using the wrong tool so it is better to suggest the better way. I read the question as "I want to .... to schedule a script." Look at the required end result not the method to do it which happens to be not the best for macOS. – mmmmmm Apr 03 '22 at 10:42

Where is my crontab file?

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