Cron Expression Parser

Decode and understand cron schedule expressions in plain English.

Minute
Hour
Day
Month
Weekday
0
9
*
*
1-5
📅 Runs at minute 0, at hour 9 on from 1 to 5 (weekday)
Minute:0at minute 0
Hour:9at hour 9
Day of Month:*every day
Month:*every month
Day of Week:1-5from 1 to 5 (weekday)
Common Presets

About This Tool

Cron is a Unix-based job scheduler that allows tasks to run automatically at specified times. The cron expression format uses 5 fields (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week) to define the schedule. Used by crontab, Kubernetes CronJobs, GitHub Actions schedules, and most CI/CD platforms.

When to Use

  • Understanding a CI/CD pipeline's scheduled trigger.
  • Writing a Kubernetes CronJob or AWS Lambda scheduled event.
  • Debugging why a scheduled task didn't run at the expected time.

Practical Examples

0 9 * * 1-5Every weekday (Mon-Fri) at 9:00 AM
*/5 * * * *Every 5 minutes
0 0 15 * *At midnight on the 15th of every month

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Forgetting that day-of-week uses 0=Sunday (some systems use 7=Sunday too).
  • Not accounting for timezone — cron runs in the server's local timezone by default.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What does '*' mean?A. '*' means 'every possible value'. In the hour field, it means every hour from 0 to 23.
Q. What's the difference between '0 0 * * 0' and '0 0 * * 7'?A. Both mean Sunday. 0 and 7 represent Sunday in cron's day-of-week field.

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