Cron Parser

About the Cron Expression Parser

This free online cron parser decodes any Unix-style cron expression into plain English and shows the next five scheduled run times in your local timezone. Perfect for debugging crontab entries, Kubernetes CronJobs, GitHub Actions schedule triggers, GitLab CI/CD cron rules, AWS EventBridge expressions, Vercel Cron jobs, and any other scheduler that speaks cron.

Cron Field Reference

A standard cron expression has five fields: minute (0–59) hour (0–23) day-of-month (1–31) month (1–12) day-of-week (0–6). The optional 6-field form prepends a seconds field (0–59). Both forms are supported here.

Supported Operators

• * — every value in the field
• , — list, e.g. 1,15,30
• - — range, e.g. 1-5 (Monday–Friday)
• / — step, e.g. */5 every five units
• Month aliases: JAN…DEC
• Day-of-week aliases: SUN…SAT (both 0 and 7 mean Sunday)

Common Cron Recipes

• * * * * * — every minute
• */5 * * * * — every five minutes
• 0 * * * * — hourly on the hour
• 0 9 * * 1-5 — weekdays at 9:00 AM
• 0 0 1 * * — first day of every month at midnight
• 30 2 * * 6 — Saturdays at 2:30 AM
• 0 0 1 1 * — once a year on January 1st at midnight

The Day-of-Month / Day-of-Week Quirk

When both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted (not*), classic Vixie cron behaves as an OR: the job runs if either field matches. Our parser follows that convention, matching most server crons and Kubernetes CronJobs. If your scheduler differs, verify with its own docs.

Timezone Behavior

The next-run preview is computed in your browser's local timezone. Server crontabs usually run in UTC (or the system timezone). Kubernetes CronJobs default to UTC; Vercel Cron and GitHub Actions also use UTC. If your schedule looks "off by an hour", timezone is almost always the cause.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this tool support non-standard extensions?

Core syntax, ranges, lists, steps, and name aliases are supported. Quartz-only extensions (L, W, #) and the? wildcard are not — they are not part of the Vixie/POSIX cron grammar used by most Linux servers.

Can I schedule something every N seconds?

Yes — use the 6-field form. For example, */10 * * * * * runs every ten seconds. Note that most POSIX cron implementations only support the 5-field form; 6-field cron is common in Quartz, Spring, and Kubernetes CronJobs (via schedulingPolicy extensions).

What is the difference between 0 */2 * * * and */2 * * * *?

The first runs at minute 0 of every second hour (12:00, 2:00, 4:00…). The second runs every two minutes (12:00, 12:02, 12:04…). The */Nstep applies to the field it appears in, not the whole expression.

Related Tools and Guides

Convert between Unix timestamps and human dates with our Date ↔ Timestamp converter. Debugging a regex-driven scheduler? Try the Regex Tester.