Use cron in OSX

First create a .crontab file in your home directory. This is your per-user cron config, here is an example:

* * * * */5 ~/scripts/rysnc.rb

(In the example above, rysnc.rb is executeable. I prefer ruby for complex operations.)

For OSX to load your cron config, execute:

crontab ~/.crontab

Whenever you updated the crontab file, execute the command above to update the system.

You can see the system loaded config with:

sudo cat /usr/lib/cron/tabs/$USER