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Cron expression generator & parser

A free tool: type a cron expression and read it back in plain English, with the next run times. No sign-up, no man page.

At every 15th minute past every hour from 9 through 17, on Monday through Friday.

next runs · your local time

    the five fields

    A cron expression is five values separated by spaces. Each controls one part of the schedule, left to right:

    • minute0-59
    • hour0-23
    • day of month1-31
    • month1-12 or JAN-DEC
    • day of week0-6 or SUN-SAT

    Use * for every value, */5 for a step, 1-5 for a range, and 1,15,45 for a list.

    common cron expressions

    expression meaning
    * * * * * Every minute
    */5 * * * * Every 5 minutes
    0 * * * * Every hour, on the hour
    */15 9-17 * * 1-5 Every 15 minutes, 9am to 5pm, on weekdays
    0 0 * * * Every day at midnight
    30 2 * * * Every day at 02:30
    0 9 * * 1-5 At 09:00, Monday to Friday
    0 0 * * 0 Every Sunday at midnight
    0 0 1 * * Midnight on the 1st of each month
    0 0 1 1 * Midnight on the 1st of January

    FAQ

    What is a cron expression?
    Five fields that tell a scheduler when to run a job: minute, hour, day of the month, month, and day of the week. 0 9 * * 1-5 means 9am on weekdays.
    What does the slash mean, like */15?
    A step. */15 in the minute field means every 15th minute (0, 15, 30, 45). */2 in the hour field means every other hour.
    Are the next run times UTC or local?
    The times shown here are in your browser's timezone. On a server, cron uses that machine's timezone, which is usually UTC. Check the box's timezone before you trust a schedule in production.
    What happens when both day fields are set?
    If you restrict both the day of the month and the day of the week, cron runs when EITHER matches, not both. So 0 0 1 * 1 fires on the 1st and every Monday.
    Do shortcuts like @daily work?
    Yes. The parser accepts @hourly, @daily, @weekly, @monthly and @yearly and expands them to the equivalent five-field expression.

    Something has to run that cron. Watch that it does.

    A schedule is only as good as the job behind it. Point an Uptimepage heartbeat at your cron job and get paged the first time it misses a run. Start free, no card.

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