Cron Generator
Build cron expressions visually and translate them to plain English.
Generated Expression
0 0 * * *
Interpreting…
Common Presets
What is the Cron Generator?
The Cron Generator works in both directions: build a cron expression from friendly dropdowns, or paste an existing expression and get a plain-English explanation of when it runs. Cron expressions schedule recurring jobs on Unix systems, CI pipelines, Kubernetes CronJobs, and countless schedulers — but their five-field syntax is notoriously easy to get wrong.
A standard cron expression has five fields — minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week — where * means "every", */n means "every n", ranges like 1-5 select spans, and comma lists select specific values. The parser validates structure and ranges, then translates the schedule into human-readable text.
How to use the Cron Generator
- In Builder mode, pick values for minute, hour, day, month, and weekday — the expression and its meaning update live.
- In Parser mode, paste any cron expression to see its plain-English description.
- Click a preset (every minute, every hour, every weekday…) to load a common schedule instantly.
- Copy the expression for use in your crontab or scheduler.
Examples
Every day at midnight
0 0 * * *
Every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * *
Weekdays at 9:30 AM
30 9 * * 1-5
First of the month at 6 AM
0 6 1 * *
Frequently asked questions
What do the five fields mean?
In order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 mean Sunday).
Are seconds supported?
This tool targets the standard 5-field format used by crontab. Some schedulers (Quartz, Spring) add a seconds field — those 6-field expressions aren't parsed here.
How do day-of-month and day-of-week interact?
In standard cron, if both are restricted the job runs when either matches (an OR, not an AND). "0 0 13 * 5" fires on the 13th and on every Friday.
What timezone do cron jobs run in?
Whatever timezone the scheduler's host uses — the expression itself carries no timezone. Check your server or scheduler configuration.
Related developer tools
Unix Timestamp Converter
Convert Unix timestamps to dates and dates to timestamps, live.
Date & Time
Regex Tester
Test regular expressions with live matches, groups, and highlighting.
Testing & Development
UUID Generator
Generate cryptographically secure UUID v4 identifiers in bulk.
Generators
JWT Generator
Create and sign JSON Web Tokens with HS256, HS384, or HS512.
Security & Encoding