Cron expression explainer

Paste a cron expression and see a plain-English description plus the next five runs.

Runs in your browser Instant No signup, no tracking

About this tool

Cron syntax is compact but easy to misread. Paste any standard 5-field expression (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) and this tool will translate it to English and show the next five occurrences in UTC. Useful when reviewing a coworker's crontab, verifying a Kubernetes CronJob, or drafting a new schedule and checking it fires when you expect. Uses cronstrue for descriptions and cron-parser for future-run calculation.

Example

Paste the input on the left and you will get output like this:

Sample Cron expression

0 9 * * 1-5

Resulting Explanation & next runs

Expression: 0 9 * * 1-5

Human-readable: At 09:00 AM, Monday through Friday

Next 5 runs (UTC):
  • 2026-07-06T09:00:00.000Z
  • 2026-07-07T09:00:00.000Z
  • 2026-07-08T09:00:00.000Z
  • 2026-07-09T09:00:00.000Z
  • 2026-07-10T09:00:00.000Z

How to use Cron expression explainer

  1. Paste or type your Cron expression into the left pane.
  2. The Explanation & next runs appears instantly in the right pane. Conversion runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
  3. Copy the result to your clipboard or download it as a file.

FAQ

Which cron dialect?
Standard 5-field POSIX cron. Aliases like @daily and @hourly work. Seconds-precision (6-field) cron is not supported.
Why UTC?
So results are unambiguous regardless of your machine's timezone. Convert to your local zone by hand if needed.
Can I plug this into GitHub Actions?
Yes. GitHub Actions uses standard 5-field cron; the description here matches how Actions will interpret it.