🛠️ Web & Developer

Cron Expression Generator

Build cron expressions visually — pick the schedule you want and get the cron syntax plus a plain-English explanation. No more guessing asterisks.

Advertisement
⏰
Cron Expression Generator

Select the timing for each field — minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week — or tap a preset to load a common schedule. Your cron expression updates live.

0–59
0–23
1–31
1–12
0=Sun … 6=Sat
Your Cron Expression
* * * * *
Runs every minute of every hour, every day.
Next 5 Runs (UTC)
    Quick Reference
    *Any value
    ,List separator (1,15)
    -Range (1-5)
    */nEvery n intervals (*/5)
    Advertisement

    What is a Cron Expression Generator?

    A cron expression generator is a visual tool that helps you build cron syntax — the scheduling format used by Unix, Linux, macOS, and most server environments to run tasks automatically. Instead of memorising asterisks and number ranges, you pick the schedule from dropdowns or tap a preset, and the tool writes the correct expression for you. It's a time-saver for developers, sysadmins, DevOps engineers, and anyone who sets up scheduled jobs, cron tabs, GitHub Actions, CI/CD pipelines, or cloud functions.

    This generator builds standard five-field cron expressions (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week), shows a plain-English explanation of what the expression does, and previews the next five run times so you can verify the schedule before deploying it.

    What is a Cron Expression?

    A cron expression is a string of five fields separated by spaces. Each field controls one dimension of the schedule — when the task runs within a minute, an hour, a day, a month, and a week.

    ┌───────────── minute (0–59)
    │ ┌─────────── hour (0–23)
    │ │ ┌───────── day of month (1–31)
    │ │ │ ┌─────── month (1–12)
    │ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week (0–6, Sun=0)
    │ │ │ │ │
    * * * * *

    Examples:
    0 9 * * 1-5 → 9:00 AM, Mon–Fri
    */15 * * * * → every 15 minutes
    0 0 1 * * → midnight on the 1st of each month

    How to Use This Generator

    Tap a preset button for common schedules — every minute, hourly, daily at midnight, weekdays at 9 AM, and more. Or use the five dropdown fields to set each dimension manually. The cron expression, its plain-English explanation, and the next five UTC run times all update live. When it looks right, hit Copy and paste the expression into your crontab, CI config, or cloud scheduler.

    You can also paste an existing cron expression into the input field to decode it — the tool will fill in the dropdowns and show the explanation and next runs for that expression.

    Where Cron Expressions Are Used

    • Linux/Unix crontab: the original cron scheduler built into every Unix-like system.
    • CI/CD pipelines: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI all use cron syntax for scheduled workflows.
    • Cloud schedulers: AWS EventBridge, Google Cloud Scheduler, Azure Functions — all accept cron expressions.
    • Monitoring and alerts: Datadog, PagerDuty, and similar tools use cron to schedule checks.
    • Backups and maintenance: database dumps, log rotation, cache clearing — anything recurring.
    💡 Always test your cron expression before deploying. A misplaced asterisk can run a job every minute instead of every month — and depending on the task, that can be expensive or disruptive. The "Next 5 Runs" preview is your safety net.

    Common Cron Expressions

    Here are the schedules developers use most often, all available as one-tap presets in the generator above: every minute (* * * * *), every 5 minutes (*/5 * * * *), every hour on the hour (0 * * * *), daily at midnight (0 0 * * *), weekdays at 9 AM (0 9 * * 1-5), weekly on Sunday midnight (0 0 * * 0), first of every month (0 0 1 * *), and yearly on January 1st (0 0 1 1 *).

    Special Characters Explained

    The asterisk (*) means "every" — every minute, every hour, every day. A comma (,) lists specific values, like 1,15 for the 1st and 15th. A hyphen (-) defines a range, like 1-5 for Monday through Friday. A slash (*/n) means "every n intervals," so */15 in the minute field means every 15 minutes. These can be combined: 0 9-17 * * 1-5 means every hour from 9 AM to 5 PM on weekdays.

    5-Field vs 6-Field Cron

    Standard Unix cron uses five fields (minute through day-of-week). Some systems — notably AWS and some job schedulers — add a sixth field for seconds or year. This generator builds standard five-field expressions, which are compatible with the widest range of systems. If your system requires a seconds field, prepend 0 to the expression; if it requires a year field, append *.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What does * * * * * mean in cron?
    Five asterisks mean "every minute of every hour of every day of every month, every day of the week" — in other words, run the task once per minute, continuously. It's the most frequent schedule possible in standard cron.
    How do I schedule a cron job for every 5 minutes?
    Use */5 * * * *. The */5 in the minute field means "every 5th minute" — so the job runs at :00, :05, :10, :15, and so on through the hour, every hour, every day.
    How do I run a job only on weekdays?
    Set the day-of-week field to 1-5. For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 runs at 9:00 AM Monday through Friday. Days are numbered 0 (Sunday) through 6 (Saturday).
    What timezone do cron jobs use?
    It depends on the system. Traditional Unix cron runs in the server's local timezone. Cloud schedulers (AWS, GCP) usually default to UTC but let you set a timezone. GitHub Actions runs in UTC. The "Next 5 Runs" preview in this tool shows UTC times — adjust mentally for your system's timezone.
    Can I run a cron job every 30 seconds?
    Not directly — standard cron's smallest unit is one minute. For sub-minute intervals, you'd typically use a different scheduler, a wrapper script with a sleep loop, or two cron entries offset by 30 seconds (e.g. the task itself plus a delayed version).
    What does */15 mean?
    The slash means "every nth interval." So */15 in the minute field means every 15 minutes (at :00, :15, :30, :45). In the hour field, */6 means every 6 hours (at 0:00, 6:00, 12:00, 18:00).
    Is this compatible with GitHub Actions?
    Yes. GitHub Actions uses standard five-field cron in its schedule trigger. Generate the expression here, then paste it into your workflow YAML under schedule → cron. Note that GitHub Actions runs in UTC and may have a slight delay on scheduled runs.
    Does this tool store my data?
    No. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded or tracked. The tool is instant, free, and works offline once the page has loaded.
    Advertisement
    Advertisement
    Related Tools
    { }JSON Formatter ⚙️Regex Tester 🔠Base64 Encoder 🔑UUID Generator 🕐Unix Timestamp 🔒Password Generator
    Scroll to Top