Cron Expression Translator
Paste a cron line, inspect the meaning, and verify the upcoming runs.
Input
Paste or inspect any cron line
Paste a full cron line or type with spaces. Active field: Minute
5 fields
Translation
Plain English + run preview
At 9:00 AM, Monday through Friday
Field breakdown
Next 10 runs
| Run | Local Time | Relative |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jun 15, 2026, 09:00 | in 2 days |
| 2 | Jun 16, 2026, 09:00 | in 3 days |
| 3 | Jun 17, 2026, 09:00 | in 4 days |
| 4 | Jun 18, 2026, 09:00 | in 5 days |
| 5 | Jun 19, 2026, 09:00 | in 6 days |
| 6 | Jun 22, 2026, 09:00 | Jun 22, 2026, 09:00 |
| 7 | Jun 23, 2026, 09:00 | Jun 23, 2026, 09:00 |
| 8 | Jun 24, 2026, 09:00 | Jun 24, 2026, 09:00 |
| 9 | Jun 25, 2026, 09:00 | Jun 25, 2026, 09:00 |
| 10 | Jun 26, 2026, 09:00 | Jun 26, 2026, 09:00 |
Warnings
Top-of-hour schedule
This runs at :00. Consider jitter if many jobs wake up at the same time.
Reading cron
Cron Expression Examples Explained
A compact library of common expressions with inline translations and one clean copy action for sharing the explanation page.
Every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * *
Runs every 5 minutes.
A common schedule for fast syncs and health checks.
Top of the hour
0 * * * *
Runs at the top of every hour.
The most common hourly cron pattern.
Daily at midnight
0 0 * * *
Runs once per day at midnight.
Often used for rollups and retention tasks.
Weekdays at 9 AM
0 9 * * 1-5
Runs Monday through Friday at 9:00 AM.
A business-hours friendly schedule.
Every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * *
Runs four times per hour.
Useful for frequent but bounded background jobs.
Weekly Sunday midnight
0 0 * * 0
Runs every Sunday at midnight.
A simple weekly cadence for summaries.
Monthly on the first
0 0 1 * *
Runs on the first day of every month at midnight.
Good for monthly billing or quotas.
Every 2 hours
0 */2 * * *
Runs every other hour on the hour.
Useful for moderate cadence batches.
Weekdays at 5 PM
0 17 * * 1-5
Runs Monday through Friday at 5:00 PM.
Often used for end-of-day tasks.
Weekend noon
0 12 * * 0,6
Runs on Saturday and Sunday at noon.
A good fit for lower-traffic maintenance.
Monthly on the 25th
0 8 25 * *
Runs on the 25th day of every month at 8:00 AM.
Great for scheduled billing reminders.
New Year’s Day
0 0 1 1 *
Runs once a year on January 1 at midnight.
A classic annual schedule.
Every minute
* * * * *
Runs once per minute.
Useful for very lightweight polling.
Every 30 minutes
*/30 * * * *
Runs twice per hour.
A balanced cadence for sync jobs.
Daily at 9:30 AM
30 9 * * *
Runs every day at 9:30 AM.
Useful for consistent business-day automation.
Weekdays at 7:30 AM
30 7 * * 1-5
Runs Monday through Friday at 7:30 AM.
A common pre-work morning automation.
Year-end midnight
0 0 31 12 *
Runs on December 31 at midnight.
Handy for year-end archival or reports.
Quarterly
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *
Runs on the first day of January, April, July, and October.
Useful for quarterly reviews and finance workflows.
Weekly Monday 3 PM
0 15 * * 1
Runs every Monday at 3:00 PM.
Great for standup-adjacent recurring tasks.
Hourly at :20
20 * * * *
Runs every hour at 20 minutes past.
Useful when you want to avoid the top of the hour.
Syntax
Cron Syntax Cheat Sheet
The same five fields, but framed for reading instead of writing.
Minute
minute
Controls when during the hour the job starts.
- Allowed
- 0-59, *, */N, lists, ranges
- Example
- */5
Hour
hour
Chooses the hour of day in the selected timezone.
- Allowed
- 0-23, *, */N, lists, ranges
- Example
- 9
Day of month
day-of-month
Targets specific calendar days like the 1st or 15th.
- Allowed
- 1-31, *, lists, ranges
- Example
- 1
Month
month
Limits the schedule to specific months.
- Allowed
- 1-12, jan-dec, *, lists, ranges
- Example
- 1
Weekday
weekday
Targets weekdays or weekend-only schedules.
- Allowed
- 0-7, sun-sat, *, lists, ranges
- Example
- 1-5
Compatibility
Cron Compatibility Notes
Schedulers often borrow cron syntax but change the rules. This table is a quick reality check before you ship.
| Platform | Syntax | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linux / Vixie cron | 5-field cron | Classic minute-hour-day-month-weekday syntax with OR logic for DOM and DOW. |
| systemd timers | OnCalendar | Calendar expressions are more expressive, but they are not drop-in cron expressions. |
| AWS EventBridge | cron(...) | Uses a cron-like format with a required year field and special `?` placeholders. |
| Kubernetes CronJob | 5-field cron | Mostly standard cron, but the controller and timezone behavior are worth checking. |
| GitHub Actions | 5-field cron | Schedules run in UTC, which often surprises teams expecting local-time execution. |
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers for the long-tail queries people actually type when they are trying to understand cron.
Translation is just step one
Once you understand the schedule, monitor that it actually fires.
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