Cron Expression Generator
Build a 5-field cron expression visually, with common presets, a plain-English explanation, and its real next run times.
Standard 5-field cron
This tool uses standard cron (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) — not proprietary extensions some systems add (a seconds field, @yearly, text ranges like MON-FRI…). Each field accepts *, a number, comma-separated lists, hyphen ranges, and step values with /.
The description is approximate, the next runs aren't
The plain-English explanation recognizes the most common patterns (every N minutes, daily at a specific time, a specific day of the week…); for more complex expressions, it shows a field-by-field reading instead of guessing a sentence that could be wrong. The next-runs list, on the other hand, is a real, exact computation from the expression — not an approximation.
Day of month and day of week: OR, not AND
If you fill in both the day of month and the day of week (neither is *), the expression runs when EITHER one is true — not only when both match at once. That's standard cron behavior, even though it surprises first-time users.
Privacy
Everything is built in your browser. The expression is never sent to Numelto.
Common cron examples
Keep in mind the server may run on UTC: check the time zone. To convert times to timestamps, use the timestamp converter.
| Expression | When it runs |
|---|---|
| */5 * * * * | Every 5 minutes |
| 0 8 * * * | Every day at 08:00 |
| 0 9 * * 1 | Mondays at 09:00 |
| 0 0 1 * * | The 1st of every month at midnight |