Cron expression visualizer
Explain a cron expression in plain English and preview its next run times. Runs in your browser.
Runs 100% in your browserField breakdown
Next 5 runs (local time)
How to read a cron expression
- Enter a cron expression. Type a 5-field cron string, or pick a preset.
- Read the explanation. See it in plain English plus a field breakdown.
- Check upcoming runs. The next 5 run times are listed in local time and UTC.
About cron
Cron is the time-based scheduler behind countless servers, CI pipelines and background jobs. Its
five-field syntax is terse and easy to misread — is */15 9-17 * * 1-5 every 15 minutes
during business hours on weekdays, or something else? This visualizer translates the expression to
plain English, breaks down each field, and shows the actual upcoming run times so you can confirm a
schedule before deploying it.
Frequently asked questions
- Standard 5-field cron: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week. It supports
*, ranges (1-5), lists (1,15,30) and steps (*/5,0-30/10). - Your browser's local timezone (also shown in UTC). Note cron itself is timezone-agnostic — the schedule runs in whatever zone the server is configured for; DST transitions can shift wall-clock times.
- Per cron convention: if both are restricted (neither is
*), a run fires when either matches. - No — parsing and the schedule preview run entirely in your browser.