Cron Expression Builder
Build cron schedules visually — with plain-English output and next run times
minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week
Runs at 09:00, on Mon through Fri
Presets
Field Builders
Minute
0Hour
9Day of Month
*Matches every day of month (*).
Month
*Matches every month (*).
Day of Week
1-5Field Breakdown
0minute 0909:00*every day*every month1-5Mon through FriHow cron expressions work
A cron expression is a five-field schedule read left to right: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day-of-month (1–31), month (1–12), and day-of-week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 mean Sunday). Each field accepts * (any value), a list like 1,15,30, a range like 1-5, or a step like */10 (every 10 units). These can combine: 0-30/5 means every 5 units from 0 through 30.
For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 runs at 09:00 on Monday through Friday, and */15 8-18 * * * runs every 15 minutes between 08:00 and 18:59 every day. The daemon compares the current time against all five fields once per minute — cron’s finest resolution is one minute, so there is no seconds field in the classic format (Quartz-style schedulers add one).
One subtle rule trips almost everyone up: when both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted (neither is *), POSIX cron runs the job when either one matches. So 0 0 13 * 5 fires on the 13th of every month and on every Friday — not only on Friday the 13th. The next-run preview above implements this OR rule, matching the behavior of Linux crontab.
❓Cron Builder FAQ
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