How do you schedule one-time jobs with the at command?

at TIME schedules a command to run once at a given moment — type the command, press Ctrl+D, and it fires later even if you log out.

at is the "do this later, once" tool, the counterpart to cron's "do this repeatedly." It accepts wonderfully human time specs (at now + 5min, at 4pm, at 10:00 tomorrow). Unlike a backgrounded sleep, the job is handed to the atd daemon, so it survives your shell closing. Manage the queue with atq (list) and atrm (cancel).

Basic usage:

at <TIME>
# Type commands, then Ctrl+D to finish

Time formats:

at now + 5min      # 5 minutes from now
at now + 2hours    # 2 hours from now
at 4pm             # Today at 4 PM
at 10:00 tomorrow  # Tomorrow at 10 AM
at noon            # Today at noon
at teatime         # 4 PM
at midnight        # Midnight

Example:

$ at now + 3min
at> echo "Reminder: Take a break" > /dev/pts/0
at> <EOT>    # Press Ctrl+D
job 1 at Mon Jan 27 14:30:00 2026

Managing at jobs:

Note: Regular users can only use at if not listed in /etc/at.deny