Free cron expression explainer: What does this cron schedule mean?
Paste a crontab schedule to read it in plain English and see the next times it runs on a server in your time zone or in UTC.
Runs
Every 5 minutes.
- */5
- minute
- *
- hour
- *
- day of the month
- *
- month
- *
- day of the week
Next runs
On a server in Europe/Stockholm
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026, 00:15
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026, 00:20
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026, 00:25
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026, 00:30
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026, 00:35
On a server in UTC
- Thu, 5 Nov 2026, 23:15
- Thu, 5 Nov 2026, 23:20
- Thu, 5 Nov 2026, 23:25
- Thu, 5 Nov 2026, 23:30
- Thu, 5 Nov 2026, 23:35
Cron says nothing when a job fails or stops running. Get an alert when it’s late.
Monitor this cron job//_01 Syntax
Five fields, read from left to right
-
01
Minute
0–59
-
02
Hour
0–23
-
03
Day of the month
1–31
-
04
Month
1–12 · JAN–DEC
-
05
Day of the week
0–6 · SUN–SAT · 7 = SUN
| Character | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| * | Every value | * * * * *every minute |
| , | A list of values | 0 8,12,18 * * *at 08:00, 12:00 and 18:00 |
| - | A range | 0 9 * * 1-5at 09:00, Monday through Friday |
| / | Every nth value | */15 * * * *every 15 minutes |
| @ | A shortcut | @daily@yearly, @monthly, @weekly, @daily, @hourly |
Questions
What are the five fields of a cron expression?
Minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of the month (1–31), month (1–12 or JAN–DEC) and day of the week (0–6 or SUN–SAT, where 0 and 7 are both Sunday). A * means every value, a-b a range, a,b a list and */n every nth value.
What happens when both day of the month and day of the week are set?
Standard cron runs the job when either one matches. 0 9 1 * MON runs at 09:00 on the 1st of every month and on every Monday, not only on Mondays that fall on the 1st.
Which time zone does cron use?
The time zone of the machine or service that runs it. Linux servers often run in UTC, GitHub Actions schedules always do, and Kubernetes CronJobs use the controller’s zone unless spec.timeZone is set. This page shows the next runs in both your time zone and UTC.
How do I know if a cron job stopped running?
Cron says nothing when a job doesn’t run or fails. Add a ping at the end of the job (curl to a heartbeat URL) and a cron job monitor alerts you when the ping is late. Uptimecheck reads the same schedule you paste here.
Let Uptimecheck keep watching
This free tool answers one question at a time. In Uptimecheck, the same work runs on its own and alerts you when something needs attention.
More free tools
All tools- Is it down? Check whether a website answers, how fast, and when its certificate expires. Open tool
- SLA and uptime calculator Turn an uptime percentage into the downtime it allows per day, week, month, quarter and year, or work out the uptime a given amount of downtime leaves. Open tool
- SSL certificate checker See whether a site’s certificate is valid, when it expires, who issued it, which names it covers and the full chain, checked from Stockholm. Open tool
Downtime is obsolete.
Set up your first monitor in under a minute, or look around the live demo first.
14-day free trial · Then free on 5 monitors · No credit card