Cron Expression Generator

Cron, decoded

Cron schedules are five space-separated fields — minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week — and they're easy to misread. Is 15 3 * * 2 Tuesday or the 2nd? (Tuesday.) This tool answers that instantly: type or build an expression and it shows a plain-English description plus the next five times it would fire in your local time zone, so you can confirm a schedule before shipping it.

The syntax it supports

Each field accepts * (every value), single numbers, lists (1,15), ranges (1-5 = Monday to Friday) and steps (*/5 = every 5, 10-20/2). Day-of-week is 0–6 with Sunday = 0. When both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted, standard cron uses OR logic (the job runs if either matches) — the next-run preview reflects that, so there are no surprises.

FAQ

What's the difference between */5 * * * * and 5 * * * *?

*/5 * * * * runs every 5 minutes (at :00, :05, :10, …). 5 * * * * runs once an hour, at 5 minutes past. A classic mix-up the description here makes obvious.

Does it use my time zone?

The next-run preview is shown in your browser's local time. Note that the server actually running your cron may use UTC — check your platform's time zone when the timing matters.

How do I actually run a cron job?

Cron syntax just describes when; you need something to run it. On Abasthan you can deploy a Cron Job service, paste the expression, point it at your repo, and it runs on our infrastructure — billed only for the seconds it executes.