What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a string of 5 fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) that defines a schedule. It's used in Unix-like systems, CI/CD pipelines, and task schedulers.

The */N syntax means "every N units". So */5 in the minute field means "every 5 minutes" (0, 5, 10, 15, ...).

What's the difference between 5-field and 6-field cron?

Standard cron uses 5 fields. Some systems (like AWS, Quartz) add a 6th field for seconds or year. This tool uses the standard 5-field format.

Cron Expression Parser

Parse, explain & visualize cron schedules

Cron Expression

Minute

0-59

Hour

0-23

Day of Month

1-31

Month

1-12

1-5

Day of Week

0-7 (0,7=Sun)

Human Readable

at minute 0, at hour 9, every day of month, every month, day of week 1-5

Presets

Next 5 Runs

1.6/29/2026, 9:00:00 AM

2.6/30/2026, 9:00:00 AM

3.7/1/2026, 9:00:00 AM

4.7/2/2026, 9:00:00 AM

5.7/3/2026, 9:00:00 AM

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Real-time cron expression explanation

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