For some reason, I cannot get a simple cron job working on my Mint 18 KDE system.This is the job, it tells a script to run every minute. See the crontab line that I get when I type crontab -l: # m h  dom mon dow   command1   *   *  *   *     sh /home/martien/crontest.shThis is the script crontest.sh:#! /bin/bashcd /home/martien/archives/DIRECTORY='webcam-'`date +%y-%m-%d-%H-%s`mkdir ~/archives/$DIRECTORYThese are the properties of the script-rwxrwxr-x 1 martien martien  110 Apr  2 07:35 crontest.shThe file in /var/spool/cron/crontabs/ confirms the existence of the cron job.Cron runs:root       953     1  0 06:50 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cron -fThe script runs when I enter this in the command line:sh /home/martien/crontest.shI run Mint 18 (Ubuntu Xenial). 
Cron job not working Linux Mint 18
linux mint;cron
Your cron  entry runs once an hour, at one minute past: 1 * * * * sh /home/martien/crontest.shIf you want every minute you should use this: * * * * * /home/martien/crontest.sh Since you've declared your script to be a bash script and you've set it to be executable, just call it directly. Don't write a bash script and use sh to execute it as on some systems they really are different shells.Your script can be amended slightly, too:#!/bin/bashcd /home/martien/archivesDIRECTORY=webcam-$(date +'%y-%m-%d-%H-%s')mkdir $DIRECTORYI've quoted your variables when they are used, and switched backticks to the more modern and consistent $(...) construct.