About cron expressions
This tool translates a crontab schedule into plain English and breaks it down field by field, so you can check exactly when a cron job will run. It understands stars, ranges, steps, lists, month and day names, and @daily-style shortcuts. It runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
How Cron Explainer works
The five fields
A standard cron line has five fields, in order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), day of week (0–7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). A star means "every". */15 means every 15, 1-5 is a range, and 1,15 is a list.
Worked example
0 9 * * 1-5 reads as: at 09:00, Monday through Friday. */15 * * * * means every 15 minutes. Note: if both day-of-month and day-of-week are set, cron runs when either matches, not both.
Common uses
- Understand a cron expression
- Translate crontab to plain English
- Check when a scheduled job runs
- Learn cron syntax
- Debug a cron schedule
- Verify a backup or report schedule
- Read @daily and @hourly shortcuts
- Explain cron to a teammate
Frequently asked questions
What are the five cron fields?
Minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week, in that order.
What does */5 mean?
Every 5 units — for the minute field, every 5 minutes.
What does @daily mean?
It is a shortcut for 0 0 * * * — once a day at midnight.
Why does my job run more often than expected?
If both day-of-month and day-of-week are set, cron runs when either matches, which can be more often than you intend.
Does this account for time zones?
It describes the schedule literally; the actual run time depends on the server time zone.
Is it free?
Yes, completely free with no sign-up.