Cron Expression Builder
Cron expression, in plain English
A cron expression has five fields — minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. Type any expression below and this tool explains exactly when it runs, in plain English, with a field-by-field breakdown. An asterisk (*) means “every.”
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How to read a cron expression
Cron runs a job when the current time matches all five fields. Each field accepts a single value, a list (1,3,5), a range (1-5), a step (*/10), or * for “every.” The five fields, in order, are:
| Minute | 0–59 |
| Hour | 0–23 |
| Day of month | 1–31 |
| Month | 1–12 |
| Day of week | 0–6 (0 = Sunday) |
Frequently asked questions
What are the five fields in a cron expression?
In order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–6, where 0 is Sunday). An asterisk (*) means “every” value for that field.
What does */5 mean in cron?
A step value like */5 in the minute field means “every 5 minutes” — it runs at minute 0, 5, 10, 15, and so on.
How do I run a job every day at midnight?
Use
0 0 * * * — minute 0, hour 0, every day. That fires once a day at 00:00.How do I schedule for weekdays only?
Set the day-of-week field to
1-5 (Monday–Friday). For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 runs at 9:00 AM every weekday.