Cron Expression Explainer
Free cron expression explainer. Paste a cron string and get a plain-English description of when it runs, with a per-field breakdown — supports ranges, steps, lists and macros.
🔒 Your cron expression is parsed entirely in your browser — nothing is ever uploaded.
Cron Expression Explained
Paste any five-field cron expression and this free tool translates it into plain English, so you can see
exactly when a scheduled job will run. A line like 0 9 * * 1-5 becomes
“At 09:00, Monday through Friday”, and you also get a clear field-by-field breakdown.
It’s free, instant and runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
How to use this cron explainer
- Type or paste your cron expression into the box (or tap one of the example chips).
- Click Explain — or just press Enter.
- Read the plain-English sentence at the top to understand the overall schedule.
- Check the field breakdown table to see what each of the five fields means.
- Click Copy explanation to grab the sentence for your notes or documentation.
Cron syntax reference
A standard cron expression has five space-separated fields, read left to right: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12, or names like JAN–DEC) and day of week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 mean Sunday, or names like SUN–SAT). A job runs only when every field matches the current time.
Each field accepts the same special characters. An asterisk * means “every” value.
A list like 1,3,5 picks specific values. A range like 1-5 covers everything between two
values. A step like */15 runs every 15 units, and 0-30/10 steps through part of a range.
You can also use named macros such as @hourly, @daily, @weekly,
@monthly, @yearly and @reboot as shortcuts for common schedules. Note that
when both day-of-month and day-of-week are set, most cron daemons run the job when either matches.