DevOps

Cron Expression Generator

Build a cron schedule field by field or start from a preset. See what it means in plain English and exactly when it will run next.

Build your schedule

Cron fields

0–59

0–23

1–31

1–12 or JAN–DEC

0–6 (0 = Sunday) or SUN–SAT

Use * for any, , for lists, - for ranges and / for steps.

Pick the time zone your server or scheduler uses. Most cloud servers and GitHub Actions run cron in UTC.

Your cron expression

0 9 * * 1-5

At 09:00 on weekdays (Monday through Friday).

In a crontab file: 0 9 * * 1-5 /path/to/your-script.sh

Next 10 runs (UTC)

Working out the next run times…

  • Visual builder

    Edit each of the five fields or start from a common preset like “weekdays at 9 AM”.

  • Next run times

    See the next 10 runs in UTC, Pakistan time (PKT) or another time zone before you deploy.

  • Validation

    Paste an existing expression to check it. Errors point to the exact field that's wrong.

Free online cron expression generator

Cron is how Linux servers, CI pipelines and cloud schedulers run jobs on a timetable — nightly database backups, hourly reports, weekly clean-ups. A cron expression packs that timetable into five short fields, which is easy to get wrong. This tool builds the expression for you, explains it in plain English and lists the exact times it will fire.

The five fields

  1. Minute (0–59)
  2. Hour (0–23, 24-hour clock)
  3. Day of month (1–31)
  4. Month (1–12 or JAN–DEC)
  5. Day of week (0–6 where 0 is Sunday, or SUN–SAT)

Special characters

  • Asterisk (*): any value — every minute, every hour and so on.
  • Comma (,): a list of values, e.g. 1,15 for the 1st and 15th.
  • Hyphen (-): a range, e.g. 1-5 for Monday to Friday.
  • Slash (/): a step, e.g. */15 for every 15 minutes.

When both day of month and day of week are set, cron runs the job when eithermatches — the description above spells this out so it doesn't surprise you.

Time zones

Cron uses the time zone of the machine or service that runs it. Most cloud servers and GitHub Actions use UTC, so 9:00 AM in Pakistan (PKT, UTC+5) is 0 4 * * * in UTC. Switch the time zone above to check the run times both ways.

Common uses

  • Scheduling database backups and maintenance scripts
  • Sending daily or weekly reports and emails
  • Cleaning up temporary files and old logs
  • Running scheduled CI/CD workflows
  • Syncing data between systems

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