Cron Expression Builder and Explainer
Build a cron expression or read one in plain English.
About this tool
Pick how often a job should run to build a cron expression, or type one to get a plain-English description, a breakdown of each field, and the next times it will run in your time zone. Supports ranges, lists, steps, month and day names, and shortcuts like @daily.
How to use it
- To read an expression, paste it in Explain mode and see it in plain English.
- To create one, switch to Build mode and choose how often the job should run.
- Check the next run times, shown in your own time zone.
- Copy the expression into your crontab, CI config or scheduler.
Questions
- What do the five fields mean?
- In order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12) and day of week (0–6, Sunday is 0 or 7). A * means every value.
- How do I run a job every 5 minutes?
- Use */5 * * * *. The /5 is a step, meaning every fifth value of that field starting from 0.
- What if I set both day of month and day of week?
- In classic cron the job runs when either one matches, not both. So 0 9 1 * MON runs at 9:00 on the 1st of every month and on every Monday.
- Which time zone does cron use?
- The time zone of the machine or service running it, which is often UTC on servers and in CI. The next runs here are shown in your local time, so convert if your server uses UTC.
Something not working, or a result looks wrong? Report a problem with this tool