How to Schedule a Cron Job in WordPress Without Using a Plugin?

Web Development
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1

I’m trying to set up a cron job in my WordPress website, I don’t want to use any plugin for this purpose. Could someone guide me on how to manually schedule a cron job in WordPress?

2

Follow these steps to create your own custom cron job.

  1. Open functions.php file of your theme.
  2. Add custom cron interval (optional). You can use wordpress default cron interval.
// Set the interval in seconds (e.g., 3600 seconds = 1 hour)
function cron_1hr_intervals($schedules) {
    $schedules['1hr_cron'] = array(
        'interval' => 3600, 
        'display' => __('1hr Interval'),
    );
    return $schedules;
}
add_filter('cron_schedules', 'cron_1hr_intervals');
  1. Register the Cron Event
function register_cron_event() {
    // Schedules the event if it's NOT already scheduled.
    if ( ! wp_next_scheduled ( 'run_vidsrc' ) ) {
        wp_schedule_event( time(), '1hr_cron', 'custom_cron_event' );
    }
}
add_action( 'init', 'register_cron_event');
  1. Create the functionality for the cron
function run_custom_cron() {
    // Do something here.
}
add_action( 'custom_cron_event', 'run_custom_cron');

Note: you can use the following code to clear any unused cron event.

wp_clear_scheduled_hook( 'custom_cron_event' );

Also check all existing cron event with following code.

$cron_jobs = get_option( 'cron' );
var_dump($cron_jobs);