Cron Explainer
Explain cron expressions in plain English
Human Readable
Runs every 5 minutes
*/5
minute
every 5 minutes
*
hour
every hour
*
day
every day
*
month
every month
*
weekday
every weekday
Quick Examples
About Cron Expression Explainer
1What is it?
Understand cron expressions in plain English. Enter any cron schedule and get a human-readable explanation of when it will run. This tool helps you create, debug, and document cron jobs without memorizing the cryptic syntax. See next execution times and validate your schedules.
2Use Cases
- Understand existing cron jobs in your system
- Create new scheduled tasks with confidence
- Debug cron schedules that aren't running as expected
- Document cron jobs in readable format
- Verify cron syntax before deployment
- Learn cron expression syntax
- Calculate when a cron job will next run
3Examples
Frequent execution
Input
*/15 * * * *
Output
Every 15 minutes
Weekday schedule
Input
0 9 * * 1-5
Output
At 9:00 AM, Monday through Friday
Monthly job
Input
0 0 1 * *
Output
At midnight on the first day of every month
?Frequently Asked Questions
What does each field in a cron expression mean?
The 5 fields are: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12 or JAN-DEC), day of week (0-7 or SUN-SAT, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). Special characters: * (any), */n (every n), n-m (range), n,m (list).
What does */5 mean?
The /n syntax means 'every n units'. So */5 in the minute field means 'every 5 minutes' (at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55). */2 in the hour field means 'every 2 hours'.
How do I schedule a job for business hours only?
Use '0 9-17 * * 1-5' for every hour from 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday. Adjust the hour range (9-17) and days (1-5 = Mon-Fri) as needed for your business hours.
Does this support seconds or years?
This tool uses standard 5-field cron format (minute, hour, day, month, weekday). Some systems like Quartz scheduler add seconds as the first field or years as the sixth, but that's not standard cron.
Why isn't my cron job running?
Common issues: wrong timezone (cron typically uses server time), typo in expression, script path issues, permission problems, or the job running but failing silently. Check cron logs (/var/log/cron or /var/log/syslog) for details.