Cron Generator & Tester — Bidirectional Cron Expression Translator + Next 5 Run Times + Multi-Platform Syntax

Free online cron expression generator and tester. Convert cron to human-readable description, see the next 5 upcoming run times, generate ready-to-paste syntax for Linux crontab / GitHub Actions / Vercel / Kubernetes CronJob / AWS EventBridge / node-cron. Also converts natural language ('every 5 minutes', 'weekdays at 9am') to valid cron. 100% client-side.

What is cron?

cron is the Unix task scheduler. It uses 5 fields (minute hour day month dow) to describe when a job runs. Example: 0 9 * * 1-5 = "weekdays at 9:00 AM". Modern cloud platforms (GitHub Actions, Vercel, Kubernetes, AWS EventBridge) all use the same syntax.

The 5 cron fields cheat sheet

PositionMeaningValuesSpecial chars
1Minute0-59* , - /
2Hour0-23same
3Day of Month1-31same
4Month1-12 or jan-decsame
5Day of Week0-6 (0=Sun) or sun-satsame

Common gotchas

  • 0 vs 7 for Sunday: implementations vary; this tool accepts both
  • Day-of-month + Day-of-week together: it's OR, not AND (either match triggers)
  • Timezones: server crons run in UTC by default; GitHub Actions / Vercel also default to UTC. Convert carefully
  • * * * * *: runs every minute, not "any time once"