Cron Expression Explainer

Translate cron schedules into plain English and see next runs. Explain cron expressions in plain English and preview the next scheduled run times. Supports *, lists, ranges, steps and names. Free cron translator.

This tool runs 100% in your browser. Your input is never sent to any server — you can even go offline after the page loads.

About the Cron Expression Explainer

"0 30 2 ? * MON-FRI" means something precise, but few people can read cron in their heads. Paste any standard five-field expression and this tool explains each field, translates the whole schedule into a plain-English sentence, and lists the next times it will fire in your local time zone — so you can confirm a backup job or nightly build is scheduled exactly as intended before it goes live.

How to use the Cron Expression Explainer

  1. Paste a cron expression like "*/15 9-17 * * 1-5".
  2. Read the plain-English explanation.
  3. Check the next run times to confirm the schedule.
  4. Adjust and re-check until it fires when you expect.

Key features

What are the five fields of a cron expression?
Minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12 or names) and day of week (0–7 or names, where both 0 and 7 mean Sunday).
Does this support 6-field cron with seconds?
This tool targets the classic five-field format used by Linux crontab and most cloud schedulers. Six-field variants (with a leading seconds field) are not parsed.

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