Home › Cron expression explainer
Cron expression explainer
Translate cron expressions into plain English and see the next run times. Presets for every 5 minutes, hourly, daily, weekly and monthly schedules.
🔒 Runs 100% in your browser — safe for real dataNext runs (your local time)
┌───────── minute (0–59) │ ┌─────── hour (0–23) │ │ ┌───── day of month (1–31) │ │ │ ┌─── month (1–12 or JAN–DEC) │ │ │ │ ┌─ day of week (0–6, SUN–SAT; 7 = Sunday) * * * * *
How to use the cron expression explainer
- Type a cron expression or click a preset.
- Read the plain-English description.
- Check the next run times to confirm the schedule.
About this tool
Standard cron has five fields — minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. Use * for “every”, */n for steps, a-b for ranges and commas for lists. Macros like @daily and @hourly are also understood. When both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted, cron runs when either matches, and this tool follows that rule.
FAQ
Is my data sent to a server?
No. DevKnife tools run entirely in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing you paste — API keys, tokens, customer data — is transmitted or logged, so it is safe for production data.
How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?
Use */5 * * * *.
What timezone does cron use?
The server’s local timezone unless configured (e.g. CRON_TZ). Next runs here are shown in your browser’s timezone.