Cron expression explainer
Type a five-field cron expression to see what it means in plain English and exactly when it will run next — in your local time or UTC.
| # | Next runs |
|---|
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to a server.
Cron syntax
| Field | Values | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0–59 | 0, */15, 0,30 |
| Hour | 0–23 | 9-17, */2 |
| Day of month | 1–31 | 1, 1,15 |
| Month | 1–12 or JAN–DEC | */3, JAN-MAR |
| Day of week | 0–6 (Sunday = 0 or 7) or SUN–SAT | 1-5, SAT,SUN |
* means every value, , lists values, - is a range and /n steps through it. When both day-of-month and day-of-week are set, standard cron runs when either matches.
Time zones matter
Most servers and cloud schedulers (GitHub Actions, Kubernetes CronJobs, Cloudflare Cron Triggers) run cron in UTC. 9:00 in Toronto is 14:00 UTC in winter and 13:00 UTC in summer. Check with the time zone converter.
Frequently asked questions
What does */5 mean?
Every 5th value in the field’s range, starting from the first. In the minute field, */5 runs at 0, 5, 10, … 55.
Does it support seconds or the Quartz format?
No. It reads standard five-field Unix cron, plus aliases like @daily and @hourly.
Why are my next runs at a different hour on the server?
The server is probably running cron in UTC. Switch the list to UTC to see the times it will use.