Cron Expression Generator & Explainer

Build a cron schedule or paste an existing one to see what it means in plain English. Get the next run times instantly. Free, no signup, and it runs in your browser.

What is a Cron Expression Generator?

A cron expression generator is an online tool that helps you create and understand cron schedules without memorising the syntax. Cron is the scheduler used on Linux and Unix systems, and it decides when a task such as a backup, a report, an email or a script should run. The schedule is written as a short string of five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 means 9:00 AM from Monday to Friday.

Writing these strings by hand is easy to get wrong, and one wrong character can make a job run every minute instead of every hour. This tool lets you build the expression from simple options or paste an existing one, then explains it in plain English and shows the next run times, so you can confirm the schedule before you use it.

What is a Cron Expression Explainer?

A cron expression explainer works the other way round. You paste a cron string from a crontab file, a CI pipeline, a cloud scheduler or a colleague's code, and it translates the string into a sentence you can read. This is useful when you are reviewing old code, debugging a job that did not run on time, or checking that a schedule matches what was requested.

Where is Cron Used?

Cron expressions are used in Linux crontab, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Kubernetes CronJobs, AWS EventBridge, Google Cloud Scheduler, WordPress and many backend frameworks. Because each platform can differ slightly in syntax and time zone, it is a good habit to preview the run times before you deploy.

How to Use the Cron Expression Generator

1. Type or paste a cron expression, or pick values from the minute, hour, day, month and weekday fields.
2. Read the plain English explanation shown below the expression.
3. Check the next 5 run times to confirm the schedule is what you expect.
4. Choose UTC or IST, then copy the expression into your crontab, CI pipeline or scheduler.

Cron Expression Syntax

A standard cron expression has 5 fields separated by spaces:

┌───────────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌─────────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌─────── month (1-12 or JAN-DEC)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week (0-6 or SUN-SAT, 0 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Special Characters

Character	Meaning	Example
*	Every value	* * * * * runs every minute
,	List of values	0 9,18 * * * runs at 9 AM and 6 PM
-	Range of values	0 9 * * 1-5 runs at 9 AM, Monday to Friday
/	Step values	*/10 * * * * runs every 10 minutes

Common Cron Expression Examples

Cron Expression	Meaning
* * * * *	Every minute
*/5 * * * *	Every 5 minutes
*/15 * * * *	Every 15 minutes
0 * * * *	Every hour, at minute 0
0 0 * * *	Every day at midnight (00:00)
0 9 * * *	Every day at 9:00 AM
0 9 * * 1-5	At 9:00 AM, Monday to Friday
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5	Every 15 minutes, 9 AM to 5 PM, on weekdays
30 18 * * 5	Every Friday at 6:30 PM
0 0 * * 0	Every Sunday at midnight
0 0 1 * *	First day of every month at midnight
0 0 1 1 *	Once a year, on 1 January at midnight

Cron Shortcuts (Macros)

Many cron implementations support these shortcuts. Support can vary by system, so confirm with your scheduler.

Shortcut	Same as	Meaning
@hourly	0 * * * *	Once an hour
@daily	0 0 * * *	Once a day at midnight
@weekly	0 0 * * 0	Once a week, Sunday midnight
@monthly	0 0 1 * *	Once a month, on the 1st
@yearly	0 0 1 1 *	Once a year, on 1 January
@reboot	n/a	Once, at system startup

Cron and Time Zones (IST Example)

Cron runs in the time zone of the server. Many cloud servers use UTC. India Standard Time (IST) is UTC+5:30, so you need to convert.

You want (IST)	Cron on a UTC server
9:00 AM daily	30 3 * * *
12:00 PM (noon) daily	30 6 * * *
6:00 PM daily	30 12 * * *
12:00 AM (midnight) daily	30 18 * * * (runs on the previous UTC date)

Common Cron Mistakes

• Day of month and day of week together: In standard cron, if both fields are restricted (not *), the job runs when either one matches, not both. For example, 0 0 13 * 5 runs on the 13th and on every Friday.
• Wrong time zone: The job runs in server time, not your local time.
• Mixing formats: Quartz and Spring cron use 6 or 7 fields (with seconds). A 5-field expression will fail there, and a 6-field one will fail in standard crontab.
• Running too often: * * * * * runs every minute. Make sure that is really what you want.
• Missing environment: Cron jobs run with a minimal environment, so use full paths to scripts and binaries.

Standard Cron vs Quartz Cron

Feature	Standard Unix Cron	Quartz Cron
Number of fields	5	6 or 7
Seconds field	No	Yes (first field)
Year field	No	Optional (last field)
Extra characters	None	? L W #
Common use	Linux crontab, many CI tools	Java, Spring, Quartz Scheduler

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a string of five fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) that tells a scheduler when to run a job. For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 means 9:00 AM on every weekday.

What do the 5 fields in a cron expression mean?

From left to right the fields are: 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 0 is Sunday; many systems also accept 7 for Sunday).

How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?

Use */5 * * * *. The */5 in the minute field means every 5th minute, so the job runs at minute 0, 5, 10, 15 and so on, every hour of every day.

What does * mean in cron?

The asterisk (*) means every possible value for that field. In the hour field, * means every hour. Other special characters are comma (a list, like 1,15), hyphen (a range, like 1-5) and slash (a step, like */10).

Which time zone does cron use?

Cron normally uses the time zone of the server where it runs, and many servers are set to UTC. IST is UTC+5:30, so 9:00 AM IST is 3:30 AM UTC, which is written as 30 3 * * * on a UTC server.

What is the difference between standard cron and Quartz cron?

Standard Unix cron has 5 fields. Quartz (used in Java and Spring) has 6 or 7 fields, adding seconds and an optional year, and supports extra characters like ? L W and #. Check which format your scheduler uses before copying an expression.

Is this cron tool free and private?

Yes. The tool is free, needs no signup and runs in your browser using JavaScript. Your expressions are not sent to our server.