Cron Expression Parser
Describe cron schedules in plain English with next run times.
*/5
Minute
*
Hour
*
Day of Month
*
Month
*
Day of Week
Plain English
Every 5 minutes
Next 5 runs
3/24/2026, 5:35:00 PM
3/24/2026, 5:40:00 PM
3/24/2026, 5:45:00 PM
3/24/2026, 5:50:00 PM
3/24/2026, 5:55:00 PM
Cron Expression Parser — What It Does
Paste any five-field cron expression and get an instant human-readable description of the schedule in plain English, along with the next 5–10 upcoming execution times. Ideal for verifying schedules before deploying them to production crontabs, CI/CD pipelines, or cloud schedulers.
Cron Syntax Quick Reference
Standard cron uses five space-separated fields:
Common Cron Examples
Special characters: * (every), / (step), - (range), , (list).
Common Mistakes
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the five fields in a cron expression?
- A standard cron expression has five fields separated by spaces: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 are Sunday). Some systems add a sixth field for seconds or year.
- What does */5 mean in a cron expression?
- The slash (/) is the step operator. */5 in the minute field means "every 5 minutes" — it matches 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55.
- How do I schedule a cron job to run at midnight every day?
- Use 0 0 * * * — this means minute 0, hour 0 (midnight), every day of the month, every month, every day of the week.
- What is the difference between * and ? in cron?
- In standard Unix cron, only * is used (meaning "every"). The ? character appears in Quartz/Spring cron (6-field) and means "no specific value" — used in day-of-month or day-of-week when the other field is already specified.
- Can I specify both day-of-month and day-of-week?
- In standard Unix cron, if both fields have non-wildcard values, the job runs when either condition matches (OR logic). In Quartz cron, you must use ? in one of the two fields — specifying both is invalid.