Cron Expression Generator

Last updated: Jul 12, 2026

Build a cron schedule from simple presets, or paste an expression to decode it into plain English and preview the next run times. No more guessing what star slash five means.

Cron expression

Minute

Hour

Day (month)

Month

Day (week)

Plain English

Next 5 run times (local)

Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

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How Cron Fields Work

Five fields, minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12), day of week (0-6, Sunday is 0).
Wildcards, an asterisk means every value for that field.
Steps and ranges, use star slash 5 for every fifth value and 9-17 for a range.
Lists, combine values with commas, such as 0,30 for the start and half of each hour.

Why It Matters

Avoid mistakes, a misread field can run a job 60 times more often than intended.
Confidence before deploy, plain English plus next run times confirm intent.
Portable, the standard five-field format works across cron, CI, and cloud schedulers.
Faster setup, presets cover the most common schedules in one click.

Cron Expression Reference

A standard cron expression has five space-separated fields. Each field accepts a single value, a list, a range, a step, or a wildcard. Use the table below as a quick reference for allowed values.

Field	Allowed values	Notes
Minute	0-59	First field. Minute of the hour.
Hour	0-23	Second field. 24-hour clock, 0 is midnight.
Day of month	1-31	Third field. Calendar day of the month.
Month	1-12	Fourth field. Many crons also accept JAN-DEC.
Day of week	0-6	Fifth field. 0 is Sunday. Many crons accept 7 as Sunday too, and SUN-SAT names.

Special characters can appear in any field to express more than one value:

Character	Meaning	Example
*``**	Any value (every value the field allows)	`* * * * *` runs every minute
`,`	List of specific values	`0,30 * * * *` at minute 0 and 30
`-`	Range of values, inclusive	`0 9-17 * * *` hourly from 9am to 5pm
`/`	Step within a range or wildcard	`/15 * * *` every 15 minutes

Common Cron Examples

Copy any of these into the field above to see the plain-English description and next run times.

Expression	Meaning
`* * * * *`	Every minute
`/5 * * *`	Every 5 minutes
`0 * * * *`	Every hour, at minute 0
`0 0 * * *`	Every day at midnight
`0 9 * * 1-5`	9am on weekdays (Monday to Friday)
`30 2 * * 0`	2:30am every Sunday
`0 0 1 * *`	Midnight on the 1st of every month
`0 0 1 1 *`	Midnight on January 1st (yearly)

If you rely on scheduled jobs for backups, reports, or sync tasks, broken or silent cron failures can cost you days of data. Our website maintenance services include monitored automation so a missed run never goes unnoticed.

Next steps

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Cron Expression Generator: FAQ

Which cron syntax does this generator support?

It parses five numeric Unix-style fields in this order: minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. Each field supports an asterisk, comma-separated values, numeric ranges, and positive steps. It does not parse a seconds field, year field, L, W, question mark, hash, or named months and weekdays.

Which shortcut aliases can I enter?

The parser expands @hourly, @daily, @midnight, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly, and @annually to five-field expressions. Other scheduler-specific aliases are rejected. The preset buttons use ordinary five-field values that you can edit after selection.

How are the next five run times calculated?

The browser starts at the next whole minute in its local time zone and tests minute by minute for matching fields. It displays up to five local date and time values and stops after 600,000 candidate minutes, so very sparse or platform-specific schedules may show no upcoming run.

What happens when both day of month and day of week are restricted?

This preview uses traditional cron OR behavior: a date matches when either restricted day field matches. When one day field is an asterisk, the other field controls the date. Some schedulers use different semantics, so confirm the target platform before deployment.

Why is a valid expression on my platform rejected here?

Cron dialects differ. This implementation accepts numeric five-field syntax and treats 0 or 7 as Sunday, but it does not accept Quartz syntax, seconds, names such as MON or JAN, or cloud-specific extensions. Use the documentation for the scheduler that will execute the job.

Why can the preview time differ from the server run time?

The preview uses the browser's local time zone. Cron usually uses the server, container, account, or explicitly configured scheduler time zone, including its daylight-saving rules. Compare the browser zone with the execution environment before copying the expression.

How should I verify an important cron schedule?

Check the plain-language description and all five preview times, confirm the target scheduler dialect and time zone, then deploy with logging, alerts, and an idempotent job where possible. A syntactically valid expression does not prove the command, permissions, or runtime environment will work.

Are cron expressions or schedules sent to Web Aloha?

No. Parsing, validation, description, preview calculation, presets, and copying run in the browser. The generator makes no scheduling request to a Web Aloha endpoint, so the expression is not uploaded by this feature.

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