Cron Expression Explainer
Paste a five-field cron expression and get a plain-English explanation of each field and the schedule.
What is the Cron Expression Explainer?
The cron expression explainer reads a standard five-field cron schedule, covering minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week, and describes each field in plain English. It understands wildcards, steps, lists and ranges. It is useful for checking scheduled jobs before you deploy them.
How to use it
- Type or paste a five-field cron expression, for example */15 9-17 * * 1-5.
- Read the description of each field.
- Check the summary sentence matches the schedule you intended.
Cron Expression Explainer — FAQ
What are the five cron fields?
In order: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12) and day of week (0-7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday).
What do star, slash, comma and dash mean?
A star means every value, a slash sets a step such as every 15, a comma lists values and a dash gives a range.
Does it support six-field or special formats?
No. Only the classic five-field format is explained. Some schedulers add seconds or extra keywords, so check your system documentation.