A task scheduling system is required to automate these tasks. For example, it could send promotional emails, optimize the database, create backups, or generate site traffic reports.

What is Cronjob?

Cron is a UNIX-like system task scheduler that runs shell commands at specified intervals.

If we want to schedule tasks that will be executed often, we need to edit the Crontab.

Crontab is a file that contains a list of scripts that will run periodically. 

Cron is a task scheduler daemon that runs scheduled tasks at specific intervals.

Cron uses the configuration file called Crontab, the cron table, to manage the scheduling process.

Crontab contains cronjobs, each related to a specific task. Cronjobs are composed of two parts.

1. Cron expression
2. Shell command to be run.

* * * * * shell command to run

So what we do here is create the command using Laravel Console and then schedule that command at a particular time. You only need to add the following Cron entry to your server when using the scheduler.

Laravel Cronjob Scheduling

Laravel CronJob is a built-in task manager that allows your app to execute specific commands, such as periodically sending notifications or removing inactive users.

Any web application needs specific administrative tasks that run periodically, and doing that manually is not a good idea. In addition, applications require some tasks to be run regularly on the server.

For example, it could be creating backups, generating site traffic reports, sending promotional emails, or optimizing the database.

Whether you want to email your customers about particular events or clean up the database tables at a specific time, you will need a task-scheduling mechanism to manage the tasks.

Here are the steps to set up cron jobs scheduling:

Step 1: Configuring the Laravel.

Type the following to generate the boilerplate of Laravel 11.

composer create-project laravel/laravel crontutorial --prefer-dist

Now edit the .env file to configure the database.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=8889
DB_DATABASE=cron
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=root

Migrate the tables into the database.

php artisan migrate

Step 2: Create the Laravel Artisan Command.

We will use the make: console Artisan command to generate a command class skeleton to work with.

In this application, we will send one email to the owner telling us that we have this number of users registered today.

Please type the following command to generate our console command.

php artisan make:command RegisteredUsers --command=registered:users

The above command will create a class file named RegisteredUsers.php in the app/Console/Commands directory.

We have also picked a name for the command via the command option.

It is the name that we will use when calling the command.

Now, open that command file RegisteredUsers.php and add the following code.

<?php

namespace App\Console\Commands;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail; 
use App\Mail\SendMailable;

class RegisteredUsers extends Command
{
    /**
     * The name and signature of the console command.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $signature = 'registered:users';

    /**
     * The console command description.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $description = 'Send an email of registered users';

    /**
     * Execute the console command.
     */
    public function handle()
    {
        $totalUsers = \DB::table('users') ->whereRaw('Date(created_at) = CURDATE()') ->count();

        Mail::to('krunal@appdividend.com')->send(new SendMailable($totalUsers));
    }
}

We wrote the handle() method to get the number of users registered today.

After we get the totalUsers, we will send that data to email.

Step 3: Configure mail provider

Laravel, by default, comes with the .env file, and in that file, they already defined variables to configure the email provider.

For this tutorial, I am using Mailtrap.io because they provide test email functionalities and provide every configuration to send a test email.

I have already signed up for Mailtrap, and my credentials look like this:

Now, add these credentials in the .env file like this:

MAIL_MAILER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=sandbox.smtp.mailtrap.io
MAIL_PORT=2525
MAIL_USERNAME=your_username
MAIL_PASSWORD=your_pwd
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=tls
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS="support@appdividend.com"
MAIL_FROM_NAME="${APP_NAME}"

Save this file and your mailtrap configuration is ready!

Next step, we need to send an email that contains the totalUsers. So let’s create a mail class.

Step 4: Create a mailable class to send the mail.

Type the following command to generate a mail class.

php artisan make:mail SendMailable

It will create this file inside the App\Mail folder called SendMailable.php.

Now, this class contains one property, and that is count. This count is the number of users that registered today.

So the SendMailable.php file looks like this.

<?php

namespace App\Mail;

use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Content;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Envelope;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;

class SendMailable extends Mailable
{
    use Queueable, SerializesModels;
    public $count;

    /**
     * Create a new message instance.
     */
    public function __construct($count)
    {
        $this->count = $count;
    }

    /**
     * Get the message envelope.
     */
    public function envelope(): Envelope
    {
        return new Envelope(
            subject: 'Send Mailable',
        );
    }

    /**
     * Get the message content definition.
     */
    public function content(): Content
    {
        return new Content(
            view: 'emails.registeredcount',
        );
    }

    /**
     * Get the attachments for the message.
     *
     * @return array<int, \Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Attachment>
     */
    public function attachments(): array
    {
        return [];
    }
}

Define the view for this mail at resources  >>  views  >> emails  >>  registeredcount.blade.php file.

The mails folder is not there, so we must create one and add the view registeredcount.blade.php.

<div> 
    Total number of registered users for today is: 
    {{ $count }} 
</div>

Please type the following command to execute our code. But first, let us see if we can get the mail.

php artisan registered:users

Hooray! we are getting an email saying that the Total number of registered users for today is 0. Because I did not sign up for the Laravel application, and currently, it is 0, it returns 0.

Step 5: Scheduling the Commands.

Laravel task Scheduler executes the artisan command, shell, or callback periodically at a defined time.

To schedule the task, we use the Schedule::command() method in the app/routes/console.php file.

<?php

use Illuminate\Foundation\Inspiring;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;

use App\Console\Commands\RegisteredUsers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command(RegisteredUsers::class)->everyMinute();

Artisan::command('inspire', function () {
    $this->comment(Inspiring::quote());
})->purpose('Display an inspiring quote')->hourly();

The Schedule::command(RegisteredUsers::class)->everyMinute() command will send an email every minute to the owner saying how many users have been registered every minute.

We can define some more time intervals. For example, you can replace ->everyMinute() with another time interval option from the following list.

You can find more about Task Scheduling in Laravel Documentation.

Now schedule this command via CronJob.

I am using currently MacOS, so to open the cron job scheduler, I will have to type the below command:

crontab -e

It will open a Vim text editor in which I will have to add a cron entry to my server like this:

* * * * * cd /Users/krunallathiya/Desktop/Code/laravel/crontutorial && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

So, when using Laravel’s scheduler, we only need to add a single cron configuration entry to our server that runs the schedule:run command every minute.

After a minute, we see we are getting mail containing registered users. You can see more time intervals here. So this is how you can configure the cronjob in Laravel 11. 

That’s it!

Krunal Lathiya

With a career spanning over eight years in the field of Computer Science, Krunal’s expertise is rooted in a solid foundation of hands-on experience, complemented by a continuous pursuit of knowledge.