Cron Expression Builder

Runs in your browserDeveloper Tools#DevOps

Build and check cron schedules, read them in plain English and see the next run times in IST or UTC.

Cron expression

Paste a schedule (or a whole crontab line), or edit the five fields below.

Minute

0-59

Hour

0-23

Day of month

1-31

Month

1-12 or JAN-DEC

Day of week

0-6 or SUN-SAT (7 = Sunday)

RunsAt 09:30, Monday through Friday

Cron uses the clock of the machine it runs on. Most servers and GitHub Actions use UTC, so 0 9 * * * there runs at 09:00 UTC, which is 14:30 IST.

Next 10 runs (UTC)

Date	Time (UTC)
Thu, 8 Oct 2026	09:30
Fri, 9 Oct 2026	09:30
Mon, 12 Oct 2026	09:30
Tue, 13 Oct 2026	09:30
Wed, 14 Oct 2026	09:30
Thu, 15 Oct 2026	09:30
Fri, 16 Oct 2026	09:30
Mon, 19 Oct 2026	09:30
Tue, 20 Oct 2026	09:30
Wed, 21 Oct 2026	09:30

How to use, limits & privacy

About Cron Expression Builder

Build, check and understand standard 5-field Unix cron expressions. Paste a schedule or edit the minute, hour, day, month and weekday fields, and the tool explains it in plain English, flags mistakes field by field and lists the next 10 run times in IST, UTC or your own time zone. It runs in your browser and helps anyone setting up crontab jobs, server tasks or GitHub Actions schedules.

How to Use

Enter a schedule

Type or paste an expression such as 30 9 * * 1-5 (a whole crontab line works too), pick a common schedule, or edit the five fields one by one.

Read the result

Check the plain-English description and fix any field marked in red; each message says what the field accepts.

Pick the server's time zone

Choose UTC for most servers and GitHub Actions, or IST if your server runs on Indian time, then check the next 10 runs.

Copy it

Click Copy and paste the expression into your crontab, workflow file or scheduler.

Privacy & Processing

Mode: local
Files Leave Browser: Local tool processing; review details below
Max Input Size: Device memory limits
Account Required: No
Data Stored Locally: Nothing is saved; reloading the page starts again with the example.
Network Processing: Assets or models may require an initial download

Everything runs in your browser. Expressions are not uploaded or saved.

Rules & Limitations

Standard Unix cron only: 5 fields with numbers, *, ranges (1-5), steps (*/15), lists (1,15), JAN-DEC and SUN-SAT, plus @yearly, @monthly, @weekly, @daily and @hourly.
Quartz, Spring and AWS EventBridge use 6 or 7 fields (seconds first, year last) and extras such as ?, L, W and #. These are not supported; the tool tells you when it sees them.
When both day of month and day of week are set, the job runs on days that match either one. A field that starts with *, such as */2, counts as "any day" for this rule.
Run times around daylight-saving changes may differ slightly from your server, because cron versions handle skipped and repeated hours differently. IST and UTC have no daylight saving.
GitHub Actions does not accept @daily-style shortcuts, runs at most every 5 minutes and can start late when it is busy.

Top Suggestions

Scheduling a nightly database backup on a Linux server
Setting a GitHub Actions workflow to run at 09:00 IST (03:30 UTC)
Checking what an existing crontab line actually does
Learning cron syntax for a DevOps or Linux course

Cron Expression Builder FAQ

How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?

Use */5 * * * *. The */5 in the minute field means every fifth minute (0, 5, 10 and so on), and the four stars mean every hour of every day.

Why does my GitHub Actions schedule run at the wrong time?

GitHub Actions reads cron in UTC. 0 9 * * * runs at 09:00 UTC, which is 14:30 IST. For 09:00 IST, subtract 5 hours 30 minutes and use 30 3 * * *.

What does 0 0 * * 0 mean?

It runs at midnight (00:00) every Sunday. In the day-of-week field both 0 and 7 mean Sunday, and MON-FRI or 1-5 means Monday to Friday.

What is the difference between Unix cron and Quartz cron?

Unix cron (crontab, most Linux servers, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes) has 5 fields starting with minutes. Quartz and Spring add a seconds field at the start and an optional year at the end, and use ? and L. To convert, drop the seconds and year fields and replace ? with *. Quartz counts Sunday as 1, so write weekdays as names such as MON.

What happens when I set both day of month and day of week?

Cron runs the job on days that match either field. For example, 0 9 1 * 1 runs at 09:00 on the 1st of every month and also every Monday.

Is my cron expression sent anywhere?

No. Parsing, the description and the run times are all worked out in your browser, and nothing is saved.