Cron Expression Parser
Parse cron expressions entirely in your browser — see a plain-English description and upcoming run times.
A cron expression is a compact string that describes how often a scheduled task should run — used by Linux crontab, CI/CD pipelines, and many job schedulers. A standard 5-field expression follows the format "minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week". Each field can be a specific number, a * wildcard, a range (e.g. 1-5), a list (e.g. 1,3,5), or a step (e.g. */5).
Field legend
- Minute: 0-59
- Hour: 0-23
- Day of month: 1-31
- Month: 1-12
- Day of week: 0-7 (both 0 and 7 mean Sunday)
Examples
Enter a cron expression to see its description and next run times here
FAQ
What special characters does cron syntax support?
The common ones are * (any value), , (a list, e.g. 1,3,5), - (a range, e.g. 1-5), and / (a step, e.g. */5 means every 5 units). Some schedulers also support L (last day of month/week), W (nearest weekday), and # (nth weekday, e.g. 2#1 means the first Tuesday). This tool uses cron-parser under the hood, which supports these extensions too.
Why does my expression fail to parse?
The most common causes are the wrong number of fields (standard cron uses 5: minute hour day month weekday) or a value outside the valid range for a field, like hour 25. Check each field against the legend above.
What timezone are the next run times based on?
This tool runs entirely in your browser and uses your device's local timezone — nothing is sent to a server. If your scheduled job actually runs on a server, double-check that the server's timezone matches your local one.