Cron Expression Explainer
Cmd/Ctrl+Enter saves this expression to history.
At every 5th minute.
| Minute | every 5th minute |
| Hour | every hour |
| Day of month | every day of the month |
| Month | every month |
| Day of week | every day of the week |
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Paste a standard 5-field cron expression and get a plain-English schedule description. It follows standard cron semantics for the trickiest part of the spec: when both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted, the schedule fires when either matches, not only when both do — a common source of "why did this run today" confusion. See the cheat sheet below for more field-by-field detail.
Frequently asked questions
- What does */5 mean in a cron expression?
- A step value: "every 5 units, starting from the field's minimum." In the minute field, */5 means every 5 minutes (0, 5, 10, 15...); in the day-of-month field it would mean every 5th day starting from day 1.
- Why does my cron job run on days I didn't expect?
- If both the day-of-month and day-of-week fields are restricted (neither is *), standard cron semantics treat them as an OR, not an AND — the job fires when either matches. A schedule like 0 0 15 * 1 runs on the 15th of the month AND every Monday, not just the 15th if it happens to be a Monday.
- Does it support 6-field cron with seconds?
- No — standard 5-field cron only (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week), which is what crontab and most schedulers use.
- Is my cron expression uploaded anywhere?
- No. Parsing happens locally in your browser tab — nothing is sent to a server.
Read the full guide for this tool →
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