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Cron expression explainer
Paste a cron schedule to read it in plain English and see when it runs next.
Next 5 runs (your time zone: )
What the five fields mean
| Field | Allowed values |
|---|---|
| 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 (0 and 7 are both Sunday) |
Each field accepts * (every value), , (a list, like 1,15), - (a range, like 9-17) and / (a step, like */10).
Common questions
What happens when both day of month and day of week are set?
Standard cron runs the job when either one matches. For example, 0 0 1 * 1 runs at midnight on the 1st of the month and also every Monday.
Which time zone does a cron job use?
The time zone of the machine or service that runs it, which is often UTC on servers and CI systems. This tool shows the next runs in your local time and in UTC so you can compare.
Does this support seconds, Quartz or AWS EventBridge syntax?
No. This tool explains standard 5-field Unix cron. Quartz and Spring add a seconds field and characters like ?, L and W. AWS EventBridge uses 6 fields, with a year at the end. Check your platform's format before copying an expression across.
Is my expression sent anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser.