Explain a Cron Expression
Every 15 minutes, between 09:00 and 17:59, on Monday through Friday.
*/15
minute
9-17
hour
*
day of month
*
month
1-5
day of week
Next 10 runs
Check what a crontab line, a Kubernetes CronJob or a GitHub Actions schedule really does before you deploy it. Get a plain-English description and the next 10 times it will run.
- Free
- Runs in your browser
- Next 10 run times
- No sign-up
How It Works
Check a schedule in three steps.
Enter the expression
Type five fields, use a shortcut such as @daily, or click a preset.
Read the description
The schedule is explained in plain English, field by field.
Check the run times
The next 10 runs are listed in your time zone or in UTC.
How do cron expressions work?
A cron expression has five fields: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12 or JAN-DEC) and day of week (0-6 or SUN-SAT, where 7 is also Sunday). Each field takes * for every value, a list (1,15), a range (9-17) or a step (*/15 for every 15th). So 30 9 * * 1-5 means 09:30 on weekdays. One rule surprises people: when both day fields are set, the job runs when either matches, so 0 0 13 * 5 runs on every 13th and on every Friday.
This is standard (Vixie) cron syntax. Quartz and AWS EventBridge add a seconds or year field and characters such as L, W, # and ?; those are reported instead of being guessed at.
Plain-English description
Times, days and months spelled out, including the either-day rule.
Next 10 runs
Calculated from now, skipping times that do not exist on a daylight-saving change.
Local time or UTC
Servers and CI systems often run cron in UTC; switch to see those times.
Shortcuts
@hourly, @daily, @weekly, @monthly and @yearly are expanded to five fields.
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Why Use This Cron Parser
Catch schedule mistakes before they run.
Readable description
See at a glance whether */15 9-17 * * 1-5 does what you meant.
Real run times
The next ten dates prove the schedule, including month and weekday rules.
Precise errors
Out-of-range values and unsupported syntax are pointed out by field.
Private
Everything is calculated in your browser.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions people ask about the Cron Expression Parser.
Cron uses the time zone of the machine or service that runs it. GitHub Actions schedules always run in UTC. Switch the list to UTC to see those times, or keep Your time to see them on your own clock.
Use */5 * * * *. The */5 in the minute field means every 5th minute, starting at 0.
Standard cron runs the job when either day field matches. To run only on Fridays that are the 13th, schedule it on Fridays and check the date inside the job.
No. Standard cron's smallest unit is one minute. Six-field expressions with seconds come from Quartz and similar schedulers and are reported as unsupported.
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