How would I get a cron job to run every 30 minutes?

If your cron job is running on Mac OS X only, you may want to use launchd instead.

From Scheduling Timed Jobs (official Apple docs):

Note: Although it is still supported, cron is not a recommended solution. It has been deprecated in favor of launchd.

You can find additional information (such as the launchd Wikipedia page) with a simple web search.

Try this:

0,30 * * * * your command goes here

According to the official Mac OS X crontab(5) manpage, the / syntax is supported. Thus, to figure out why it wasn't working for you, you'll need to look at the logs for cron. In those logs, you should find a clear failure message.

Note: Mac OS X appears to use Vixie Cron, the same as Linux and the BSDs.

crontab does not understand "intervals", it only understands "schedule"

valid hours: 0-23 -- valid minutes: 0-59

example #1

30 * * * * your_command

this means "run when the minute of each hour is 30" (would run at: 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, etc)

example #2

*/30 * * * * your_command

this means "run when the minute of each hour is evenly divisible by 30" (would run at: 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, etc)

example #3

0,30 * * * * your_command

this means "run when the minute of each hour is 0 or 30" (would run at: 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, etc)

it's another way to accomplish the same results as example #2

example #4

19 * * * * your_command

this means "run when the minute of each hour is 19" (would run at: 1:19, 2:19, 3:19, etc)

example #5

*/19 * * * * your_command

this means "run when the minute of each hour is evenly divisible by 19" (would run at: 1:19, 1:38, 1:57, 2:00, 2:19, 2:38, 2:57, 3:00 etc)

note: several refinements have been made to this post by various users including the author

Do:

0,30 * * * * your_command