Cron Expression Generator & Parser
Build a cron schedule field by field, or paste an existing expression to get a plain-English explanation.
Build an expression
* * * * *Every minute, every day.
Parse an expression
Every 15 minutes, from 09:00 through 17:59, on Monday through Friday.
Next 5 runs, in your time zone
- Mon, 12 Oct 2026, 09:00
- Mon, 12 Oct 2026, 09:15
- Mon, 12 Oct 2026, 09:30
- Mon, 12 Oct 2026, 09:45
- Mon, 12 Oct 2026, 10:00
How to use this tool
To write a new schedule, type into the five boxes (or start from a preset) and copy the expression shown underneath. To check one you already have, paste it into Parse an expression: you get a one-sentence reading of the schedule and the next five times it would fire. An invalid field is named in the error, for example “minute 60 is outside 0–59”, rather than silently ignored.
What the parser accepts
- Fields in this order: 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 mean Sunday).
*, single values, lists (1,15), ranges (9-17), steps (*/15,9-17/2) and a start with a step (5/15means 5, 20, 35, 50).- Three-letter names in either case:
JAN–DECfor months andSUN–SATfor days, so0 9 * * mon-friworks. - Not supported: the
@daily-style shortcuts, a seconds field, and theL,Wand#extensions some schedulers add.
Worked example: a “9 to 5” job that runs until 17:45
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5 reads as “every 15 minutes, from 09:00 through 17:59, on Monday through Friday”. The hour field 9-17 includes the whole of hour 17, so the job fires 36 times a weekday (9 hours × 4) and the last run is at 17:45, not 17:00. If the intent was to stop at five o'clock, use */15 9-16 * * 1-5 for the runs up to 16:45 and add a separate 0 17 * * 1-5 line for the 17:00 run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn’t */7 in the minute field run exactly every 7 minutes?
A step counts within the field and starts again when the field wraps. */7 in the minute field means minutes 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49 and 56, and then 0 again at the top of the next hour, so there is a 4-minute gap between :56 and :00. Only steps that divide 60 evenly (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30) give a steady interval. The same happens with */2 in the day-of-month field: in a 31-day month the job runs on the 31st and again on the 1st.
I set a day of the month and a weekday, and the job runs far more often. Why?
When both day fields are restricted, standard cron (Vixie cron, the cron package on Debian and Ubuntu, and its fork cronie on Red Hat-family systems) runs the job on days that match either one. 0 0 15 * 1 therefore fires every Monday as well as on the 15th, not only on Mondays that fall on the 15th. The explanation above says so whenever an expression hits this rule. To get "the 15th, but only if it is a Monday", schedule it on the 15th and check the weekday inside the job.
Which time zone are the next run times in?
Your browser’s. Cron itself uses the time zone of the machine or service that runs it, and cloud schedulers and CI systems often run in UTC. If your server is in UTC and you are in India (UTC+5:30), a job written as 0 9 * * * runs at 14:30 your time, so convert before trusting the list.
Can I paste a Quartz or Spring expression with a seconds field?
No. This parser reads the classic five fields and rejects anything else with the number of fields it found. Quartz and Spring put seconds first (six or seven fields) and use ? in one of the day fields, which classic cron doesn’t understand; drop the seconds field and replace ? with * before pasting.
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