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Cron Expression Builder & Explainer

Paste a crontab schedule to see it explained in plain English, or build one from a simple form below. Everything runs in your browser: nothing is sent anywhere.

📖 Guide: How cron scheduling works

Last updated: September 9, 2026

How to use this tool

1. To understand an existing schedule, paste it into the box above and click Explain.
2. To build a new one, use the form below: pick a frequency, fill in the time fields, and the cron expression updates automatically.
3. Copy the finished expression into your crontab, CI pipeline, or scheduled-task configuration.

Sample expression

A job that runs every weekday at 9:00 AM looks like this:

It's needed anywhere a task has to run unattended on a schedule — backups, report generation, cache clears, certificate-renewal checks — without someone remembering to trigger it by hand.

Explain a cron expression

Build a schedule