What it does
The Cron Explainer translates a cron expression into plain English and lists the next 10 run times in your local time. It helps you check a schedule before it goes into a crontab, a CI pipeline, Kubernetes CronJob or a cloud scheduler.
How to use it
- Type an expression into Cron expression (minute hour day month weekday), or choose one of the Common presets.
- Read the description and the upcoming runs.
The five fields
| Field | Allowed values |
|---|---|
| Minute | 0–59 |
| Hour | 0–23 |
| Day of month | 1–31 |
| Month | 1–12 or JAN–DEC |
| Day of week | 0–6 (Sunday = 0) or SUN–SAT |
* means every value, , lists values, - gives a range and / a step.
Examples
| Expression | Runs |
|---|---|
*/15 * * * * |
every 15 minutes |
0 9 * * 1-5 |
at 09:00, Monday to Friday |
30 2 1 * * |
at 02:30 on the first day of every month |
0 0 * * 0 |
at midnight every Sunday |
@daily |
at midnight every day (same as 0 0 * * *) |
Good to know
- Cron runs in the server's time zone, which is often UTC. The next runs here are shown in your own time zone, so convert if your server differs; the Time Zone Converter helps.
- When both day of month and day of week are set, classic cron runs when either matches.
- Some systems, such as Quartz and some cloud schedulers, add a seconds field. Remove it to check the schedule here.
FAQ
How do I run a job every weekday at 6 pm?
0 18 * * 1-5.
Why does my job not run at 02:30 on the night the clocks change? That time may not exist, or may happen twice, during a daylight saving change. Schedule outside 01:00–03:00 or use UTC.