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Cron Expression Parser

⏰ Parse, validate and explain cron expressions in plain English — see next 10 run times, field breakdown & 20+ common presets.

✅ 100% Free🔓 No Login Required⚡ Instant Validation📅 Next 10 Run Times

Plain English Explanation

20+ Common Presets

Built-in Reference

Common Schedules — Click to Load

Cron Expression

minutehourdaymonthweekday

Minute: */5Hour: *Day: *Month: *Weekday: *

🔧 How It Works

Parse and understand any cron expression in seconds

Enter Cron Expression

Paste any cron expression or choose from 20+ common presets like every 5 minutes, weekdays at 9am, or monthly

Parse & Validate

Click Parse to instantly validate the expression and get a plain English explanation of what it does

See Next Run Times

View the next 10 scheduled run times with exact dates, times and relative countdown — copy or download

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about cron expressions

Do I need to sign up or log in to use this tool?

No. All QuickTextTools are completely free to use online with no login, signup, or account required.

What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a string of 5 fields separated by spaces used to define a schedule for automated tasks. The fields represent minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. Cron is used in Linux, macOS, CI/CD pipelines, cloud schedulers and virtually every backend system.

What does each field in a cron expression mean?

The five fields from left to right are: Minute (0-59), Hour (0-23), Day of Month (1-31), Month (1-12 or JAN-DEC) and Day of Week (0-6 where 0 is Sunday, or SUN-SAT). An asterisk means every possible value for that field.

What do the special characters mean in cron?

The asterisk (*) matches all values. Slash (*/n) means every nth value — for example */5 in minutes means every 5 minutes. Hyphen (n-m) defines a range. Comma (n,m) defines a list of values. A range with step (n-m/s) means every s values within the range.

What are cron predefined shortcuts?

Predefined shortcuts are aliases for common schedules. @hourly equals 0 * * * *, @daily equals 0 0 * * *, @weekly equals 0 0 * * 0, @monthly equals 0 0 1 * *, @yearly equals 0 0 1 1 *, and @reboot runs the task on system startup.

How are the next run times calculated?

The tool calculates next run times by iterating minute-by-minute from the current time and checking each minute against all five cron fields. It returns the next 10 matching moments in your local timezone.

Why does my cron job not run at the expected time?

Common issues include timezone differences between the server and your local machine, miscounting fields (cron uses 5 fields not 6), day of month and day of week working as OR conditions, and month values starting from 1 not 0.

Does this tool support 6-field cron expressions with seconds?

This tool supports standard 5-field Unix cron expressions used in Linux crontab, GitHub Actions, AWS EventBridge and most schedulers. Some systems like Spring or Quartz use a 6-field format with seconds — for those, remove the seconds field before pasting.