AT(1)                       General Commands Manual                      AT(1)

NAME
     at, batch, atq, atrm – queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution

SYNOPSIS
     at [-q queue] [-f file] [-mldbv] time
     at [-q queue] [-f file] [-mldbv] -t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]
     at -c job [job ...]
     at -l [job ...]
     at -l -q queue
     at -r job [job ...]

     atq [-q queue] [-v]

     atrm job [job ...]

     batch [-q queue] [-f file] [-mv] [time]

DESCRIPTION
     The at and batch utilities read commands from standard input or a
     specified file which are to be executed at a later time, using sh(1).

     at      executes commands at a specified time;

     atq     lists the user's pending jobs, unless the user is the superuser;
             in that case, everybody's jobs are listed;

     atrm    deletes jobs;

     batch   executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words,
             when the load average drops below 1.5 times number of active
             CPUs, or the value specified in the invocation of atrun.

     The at utility allows some moderately complex time specifications.  It
     accepts times of the form HHMM or HH:MM to run a job at a specific time
     of day.  (If that time is already past, the next day is assumed.)  As an
     alternative, the following keywords may be specified: midnight, noon, or
     teatime (4pm) and time-of-day may be suffixed with AM, PM, or UTC for
     running in the morning, the evening, or in UTC time.  The day on which
     the job is to be run may also be specified by giving a date in the form
     month-name day with an optional year, or giving a date of the forms
     DD.MM.YYYY, DD.MM.YY, MM/DD/YYYY, MM/DD/YY, MMDDYYYY, or MMDDYY.  The
     specification of a date must follow the specification of the time of day.
     Time can also be specified as: [now] + count time-units, where the time-
     units can be minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years and at may be
     told to run the job today by suffixing the time with today and to run the
     job tomorrow by suffixing the time with tomorrow.  The shortcut next can
     be used instead of + 1.

     For example, to run a job at 4pm three days from now, use at 4pm + 3
     days, to run a job at 10:00am on July 31, use at 10am Jul 31 and to run a
     job at 1am tomorrow, use at 1am tomorrow.

     The at utility also supports the POSIX time format (see -t option).

     For both at and batch, commands are read from standard input or the file
     specified with the -f option and executed.  The working directory, the
     environment (except for the variables TERM, TERMCAP, DISPLAY and _) and
     the umask are retained from the time of invocation.  An at or batch
     command invoked from a su(1) shell will retain the current userid.  The
     user will be mailed standard error and standard output from his commands,
     if any.  Mail will be sent using the command sendmail(8).  If at is
     executed from a su(1) shell, the owner of the login shell will receive
     the mail.

     The superuser may use these commands in any case.  For other users,
     permission to use at is determined by the files /usr/lib/cron/at.allow
     and /usr/lib/cron/at.deny.

     If the file /usr/lib/cron/at.allow exists, only usernames mentioned in it
     are allowed to use at.  In these two files, a user is considered to be
     listed only if the user name has no blank or other characters before it
     on its line and a newline character immediately after the name, even at
     the end of the file.  Other lines are ignored and may be used for
     comments.

     If /usr/lib/cron/at.allow does not exist, /usr/lib/cron/at.deny is
     checked, every username not mentioned in it is then allowed to use at.

     If neither exists, only the superuser is allowed use of at.  This is the
     default configuration.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
     Note that at is implemented through the launchd(8) daemon periodically
     invoking atrun(8), which is disabled by default.  See atrun(8) for
     information about enabling atrun.

OPTIONS
     -q queue
             Use the specified queue.  A queue designation consists of a
             single letter; valid queue designations range from a to z and A
             to Z.  The a queue is the default for at and the b queue for
             batch.  Queues with higher letters run with increased niceness.
             If a job is submitted to a queue designated with an uppercase
             letter, it is treated as if it had been submitted to batch at
             that time.  If atq is given a specific queue, it will only show
             jobs pending in that queue.

     -m      Send mail to the user when the job has completed even if there
             was no output.

     -f file
             Read the job from file rather than standard input.

     -l      With no arguments, list all jobs for the invoking user.  If one
             or more job numbers are given, list only those jobs.

     -d      Is an alias for atrm (this option is deprecated; use -r instead).

     -b      Is an alias for batch.

     -v      For atq, shows completed but not yet deleted jobs in the queue;
             otherwise shows the time the job will be executed.

     -c      Cat the jobs listed on the command line to standard output.

     -r      Remove the specified jobs.

     -t      Specify the job time using the POSIX time format.  The argument
             should be in the form [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS] where each pair of
             letters represents the following:

                   CC      The first two digits of the year (the century).
                   YY      The second two digits of the year.
                   MM      The month of the year, from 1 to 12.
                   DD      the day of the month, from 1 to 31.
                   hh      The hour of the day, from 0 to 23.
                   mm      The minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.
                   SS      The second of the minute, from 0 to 60.

             If the CC and YY letter pairs are not specified, the values
             default to the current year.  If the SS letter pair is not
             specified, the value defaults to 0.

FILES
     /usr/lib/cron/jobs            directory containing job files
     /usr/lib/cron/spool           directory containing output spool files
     /var/run/utmpx                login records
     /usr/lib/cron/at.allow        allow permission control
     /usr/lib/cron/at.deny         deny permission control
     /usr/lib/cron/jobs/.lockfile  job-creation lock file

SEE ALSO
     nice(1), sh(1), umask(2), compat(5), atrun(8), cron(8), launchd(8),
     sendmail(8)

AUTHORS
     At was mostly written by Thomas Koenig <ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>.  The
     time parsing routines are by David Parsons <orc@pell.chi.il.us>, with
     minor enhancements by Joe Halpin <joe.halpin@attbi.com>.

BUGS
     If the file /var/run/utmpx is not available or corrupted, or if the user
     is not logged on at the time at is invoked, the mail is sent to the
     userid found in the environment variable LOGNAME.  If that is undefined
     or empty, the current userid is assumed.

     The at and batch utilities as presently implemented are not suitable when
     users are competing for resources.  If this is the case, another batch
     system such as nqs may be more suitable.

     Specifying a date past 2038 may not work on some systems.

macOS 15.2                      August 11, 2018                     macOS 15.2