Cron Expression Generator

Generate cron expressions, get a rich human-readable description, and preview the next 10 run times in any timezone.

Options

Presets

Timezone

If custom timezone is provided, it will be used. Otherwise the selected preset timezone is used.

Cron Expression

Human readable

Press Generate for a human description

Diagnostics

Expression: 0 0 * * *

Status: Looks OK (basic check)

Next 50 runs (Asia/Kolkata)

No runs computed yet — press Generate.

About cron expressions

A cron expression is a compact string used to schedule recurring jobs. It's a list of fields separated by spaces that tell a scheduler when to run a command. The most common form uses five fields:

  1. Minute (0 - 59)
  2. Hour (0 - 23)
  3. Day of month (1 - 31)
  4. Month (1 - 12 or JAN - DEC)
  5. Day of week (0 - 7 or SUN - SAT; both 0 and 7 often mean Sunday)

Some systems extend this with a seconds field (to the left) and/or a year field (to the right), giving 6 or 7 field formats. Cron fields support:

  • * — wildcard (every value)
  • 1-5 — range
  • */15 — step values
  • 1,2,3 — list
  • Special tokens like L, W, # in some implementations

Because implementations vary (CRON on Unix, Quartz scheduler, Kubernetes CronJob, etc.), always validate expressions against the scheduler you use. This generator uses cronstrue to produce readable descriptions and cron-parser to preview actual upcoming run times.

Notes

  • We use cronstrue for the human description (handles many cron features and localization).
  • Next-run times are computed with cron-parser. These are shown in ISO format (UTC) for clarity.

Tip: Press Generate after changing fields to update description and next runs. For production systems, also validate expressions on the server-side with the same library or scheduler logic.