Cron Expression Explainer

Paste any cron expression and get a plain-English explanation plus the next run times. Free, private, runs in your browser.

Cron Expression Explainer

Paste a cron → plain English + next runs. Everything stays in your browser.

5-field: min hour dom month dow

Cron expression

Timezone (preview)Next runs

Plain English

Every 5 minutes, every hour, every day

Next 5 runs (UTC)

Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 09:50:00 UTC2026-09-13T09:50:00.000Z
Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 09:55:00 UTC2026-09-13T09:55:00.000Z
Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 10:00:00 UTC2026-09-13T10:00:00.000Z
Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 10:05:00 UTC2026-09-13T10:05:00.000Z
Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 10:10:00 UTC2026-09-13T10:10:00.000Z

Export

*/5 * * * *

What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a compact schedule used by Unix cron, CI systems, and job schedulers. The common 5-field Unix form is minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

How to use this explainer

Paste a 5-field Unix cron (for example */5 * * * *).
Read the plain-English description.
Pick a timezone to preview the next N run times.
Export to Quartz, GitHub Actions YAML, or a Kubernetes CronJob.

Field reference

* — any value
*/n — every n units (e.g. */15 every 15 minutes)
a-b — inclusive range
a,b,c — list of values