Cron Expression Generator
Build cron expressions visually — choose schedule parameters using dropdowns or paste an expression to translate it to plain English. See next 5 run times instantly.
Cron Expression Format
A standard cron expression has 5 fields separated by spaces: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week. Each field accepts: a specific value (5), a range (1-5), a list (1,3,5), a step (*/5), or a wildcard (* = every). Some systems support a 6th field for seconds, and some (like AWS EventBridge) use a 6th field for year.
Cron Expression Cheat Sheet
* * * * * — every minute. 0 * * * * — every hour. 0 0 * * * — daily midnight. 0 0 * * 0 — every Sunday midnight. 0 9 * * 1-5 — weekdays 9 AM. 0 0 1 * * — first of every month. */5 * * * * — every 5 minutes. 0 0,12 * * * — midnight and noon. 0 9-17 * * 1-5 — every hour 9 AM–5 PM, Mon–Fri.
Special Characters
* (asterisk) = every possible value. - (hyphen) = range: 1-5. , (comma) = list: 1,15. / (slash) = step: */10 = every 10 units. Some cron implementations also support: L (last day of month), W (nearest weekday), # (Nth weekday of month).
0 * * * * runs at minute 0 of every hour. 30 * * * * runs at the half-hour mark. */30 * * * * runs every 30 minutes (at :00 and :30).*/5 in the minute field means "every 5 minutes." */2 in the hour field means "every 2 hours." It divides the field range into equal intervals.crontab -e. Each line: [expression] [command]. Example: 0 2 * * * /usr/bin/backup.sh