How to read a cron expression
- Type or paste the expression, or pick an example.
- Read the plain-English meaning, and check each field under the input.
- Check the next run times to make sure the schedule does what you expect.
Questions
What do the five fields mean?
From left to right: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). A * means "every", */15 means "every 15", 1-5 is a range, and 1,15 is a list.
Why do the next run times not match my server?
Most servers run cron in UTC. Turn on "Show in UTC" to see the times the way the server sees them.
Does it support seconds?
Yes. A six-field expression is read with seconds first, as in Quartz and some Node.js schedulers.
What if both day of month and day of week are set?
Standard cron runs when either one matches. For example, "0 0 1 * 1" runs on the 1st of each month and on every Monday.
Credits
Built on cRonstrue (MIT) and cron-parser (MIT). OneTooling is not affiliated with these projects.