Explain a cron expression in plain English and preview its next run times.
Parse and build 5-field cron expressions. See exactly when a schedule fires in plain English, plus the next five run times computed from your local clock. Presets and a field legend included. Handles ranges, lists, steps, and named months/days.
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In order: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week. So 30 2 * * 1 runs at 02:30 every Monday. The asterisk means every value. Getting the order wrong is the most common cron mistake, which is why previewing the next run times before deploying is worth the few seconds.
Nothing, for that example — both run at quarter past intervals. Step syntax becomes different when the range does not divide evenly: */7 in the minute field fires at 0, 7, 14, 21… then restarts at 0 the next hour, so the gap across the boundary is shorter than seven minutes.
Whatever the server is set to, which is a frequent source of jobs firing at unexpected hours. Many servers run UTC while you think in local time. Daylight saving makes it worse: a 02:30 job can run twice or not at all on changeover days, so schedule critical work outside that window.
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The five fields: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–6, where 0 is Sunday). Each supports *, ranges like 1-5, lists like 1,15, steps like */15, and names like MON or JAN.
The day quirk: when both “day of month” and “day of week” are set, the job runs when either matches — a common source of confusion that the next-run preview makes obvious.
Next runs: computed against your browser’s local time, so remember your server may run in UTC.
Privacy: Everything is parsed locally in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.