Cron Expression Explainer
Type a cron expression and get a plain English explanation, a field-by-field breakdown and the next run times. Everything runs in your browser.
In plain English
Every 15 minutes, between 09:00 and 17:59, on Monday through Friday
Field breakdown
- Minute
- */15
- every 15
- Hour
- 9-17
- 9 through 17
- Day of month
- *
- every day of month
- Month
- *
- every month
- Day of week
- 1-5
- Monday through Friday
Next 5 runs
- Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 10:30 AMin 13 minutes
- Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 10:45 AMin 28 minutes
- Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 11:00 AMin 43 minutes
- Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 11:15 AMin 58 minutes
- Thu, Oct 15, 2026, 11:30 AMin 1 hour
Cron syntax cheat sheet
* any value
, list, e.g. 1,15
- range, e.g. 9-17
/ step, e.g. */10
Fields: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12 or JAN-DEC), day of week (0-7 or SUN-SAT, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). Shortcuts @hourly, @daily, @weekly, @monthly and @yearly also work.
Frequently Asked Questions
A cron expression is a string of five fields that defines a recurring schedule: minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. It is used by cron, Kubernetes CronJobs, CI pipelines and most job schedulers.
An asterisk (*) means every possible value for that field. A step such as */5 means every 5th value, so */5 in the minute field runs at minutes 0, 5, 10 and so on. A range with a step, like 10-30/5, applies the step inside that range.
In standard cron, if both fields are restricted (neither starts with *), the job runs when either one matches. If one of them is *, only the other is used.
This tool explains standard 5-field cron expressions plus shortcuts such as @daily, @hourly, @weekly, @monthly and @yearly. Expressions with a seconds field or Quartz-only characters like ?, L and W are not supported.
Next run times are calculated in your browser time zone. Your server or scheduler may use a different time zone, usually UTC, so check its configuration before relying on the exact hour.