What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a string of 5 fields (minute, hour, day, month, weekday) that defines when a scheduled job runs. For example, '0 9 * * 1-5' means 'every weekday at 9:00am'.

How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?

Use the expression '*/5 * * * *'. The '*/5' in the minute field means 'every 5 minutes'. The asterisks in the remaining fields mean 'every hour, every day, every month, every weekday'.

What timezone does cron use?

Standard Linux crontab uses the system timezone. GitHub Actions cron runs in UTC. AWS EventBridge uses UTC by default. This tool shows next run times in your browser's local timezone.

What is the difference between 5-field and 6-field cron?

Standard cron uses 5 fields: minute, hour, day, month, weekday. Some systems like Quartz/Spring add a 6th field for seconds at the beginning. This tool supports standard 5-field cron.

Cron Expression Parser

Enter a cron schedule expression to get a plain-English explanation and the next 10 run times in your local timezone.

Cron Expression

Presets:

Human Description

Next 10 Run Times

Cron Expression Syntax

A cron expression is a string of 5 fields (or 6 with seconds) separated by spaces, each defining when the job runs:

Field	Allowed values	Special characters
Minute	0–59	`* , - /`
Hour	0–23	`* , - /`
Day of month	1–31	`* , - / ?`
Month	1–12 or JAN–DEC	`* , - /`
Day of week	0–7 or SUN–SAT (0 and 7 = Sunday)	`* , - /`

Special Characters

* — any value (every minute, every hour, etc.)
*/n — every nth value (e.g. */15 = every 15 minutes)
n-m — range (e.g. 1-5 = Monday through Friday)
n,m,o — list of specific values (e.g. 1,15 = 1st and 15th of month)

Common Cron Examples

* * * * * — every minute
0 */2 * * * — every 2 hours
0 9-17 * * 1-5 — every hour from 9am–5pm on weekdays
30 8 * * 1 — every Monday at 8:30am
0 0 L * * — last day of every month (some cron systems)
0 0 1,15 * * — 1st and 15th of every month at midnight

Cron in Popular Systems

Linux crontab — 5-field, edit with crontab -e
GitHub Actions — 5-field, runs in UTC
AWS EventBridge — uses a modified 6-field format with year field
Spring/Quartz (Java) — 6-field with seconds as the first field
Node.js node-cron — optional 6th field for seconds

Related Developer Tools

Need to debug timestamps in your scheduled jobs? Use the Unix Timestamp Converter to convert epoch values to readable dates. For generating unique job IDs, try the UUID Generator.