Cron expressions define schedules for automated tasks in Unix systems, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud services. The syntax (minute hour day month weekday) is powerful but cryptic. This tool translates cron expressions into plain English descriptions and calculates the next scheduled execution times, helping you verify that your cron schedule does what you intend.
At 12:00 AM
Enter a 5-field cron expression into the input field and the tool translates it into a plain English description, showing exactly when the task will run. The next 5 scheduled execution times are calculated and displayed with dates and times. Common presets are available for quick reference: every minute, hourly, daily at midnight, weekly, monthly, and more. You can click any preset to see its expression and description.
Cron expression parsing is essential for DevOps engineers configuring scheduled tasks in crontab, CI/CD pipeline schedules (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), cloud service schedulers (AWS EventBridge, Google Cloud Scheduler, Azure Functions Timer triggers), database backup automation, log rotation schedules, recurring report generation, cache invalidation timing, and monitoring system health check intervals.
Cron expressions use 5 fields: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12), and day of week (0-7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). Each field supports values, ranges (1-5), lists (1,3,5), step values (*/5), and wildcards (*). The parser evaluates all possible combinations and calculates the next execution times by iterating forward from the current date, checking each minute against the expression. Named values (MON, JAN) are converted to their numeric equivalents.
A cron expression is a string of 5 fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) that defines a recurring schedule. For example, '0 9 * * 1-5' means 'at 9:00 AM, Monday through Friday'. Each field can contain numbers, ranges, wildcards (*), and step values (/).
The step value */ means 'every N units'. So */5 in the minutes field means 'every 5 minutes' (0, 5, 10, 15...). */2 in the hours field means 'every 2 hours' (0, 2, 4, 6...).
Standard cron uses 5 fields (minute, hour, day, month, weekday). Some systems like Spring and Quartz add a 6th field for seconds at the beginning. This tool supports the standard 5-field format.
This requires combining day-of-month and day-of-week conditions. The expression '0 9 1-7 * 1' means 'at 9:00 on the 1st-7th of the month, but only if it's Monday'.
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