Cron Parser
Translate cron expressions into plain English
About Cron Parser
Describes a standard five-field cron expression (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) in plain English as you type, with one-click examples for common schedules. It only checks that there are five fields, so out-of-range values are not rejected, and it doesn't calculate upcoming run times. Useful for reading crontab entries or CI schedules at a glance.
Category: Text.
Frequently asked questions
What is a cron expression?
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A string of 5 space-separated fields defining a recurring schedule: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12) and day of week (0–6, where 0 is Sunday). Many cron implementations also accept 7 for Sunday, but this parser shows 7 as a plain number.
Which special characters does the parser understand?
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It describes * (every value), ? (any value), steps such as */15, and ranges and lists such as 1-5 or 1,3,5. Names like MON or JAN and Quartz symbols such as L, W and # are echoed as typed, and ranges or lists in the minute or hour field, as in 0 9-17 * * *, are often not described correctly.
Does it support @daily, @hourly and similar macros?
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No. Only five-field expressions are accepted, so macros are reported as invalid; enter the equivalent instead: @hourly = 0 * * * *, @daily = 0 0 * * *, @weekly = 0 0 * * 0, @monthly = 0 0 1 * *, @yearly = 0 0 1 1 *.
Can it parse expressions with a seconds field?
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No. Standard Unix cron uses 5 fields, and this parser rejects the 6- or 7-field formats used by Quartz and Spring, which add a seconds field at the start.