Crontab Generator — Build & Explain Cron Expressions Online
Build cron expressions visually or paste an existing one and get a plain-English explanation with this free online crontab generator. Instead of memorizing the five-field syntax, pick minutes, hours, days, and months from clear controls and copy a schedule that is guaranteed valid — or decode a mystery expression from a legacy server in seconds.
Cron drives scheduled work everywhere: Linux crontabs, Kubernetes CronJobs, GitHub Actions schedules, AWS EventBridge rules, and CI pipelines. A single misplaced asterisk can silently run a job every minute instead of every day — this tool translates expressions into human-readable schedules so mistakes are caught before deployment.
How to Create a Cron Expression
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Describe the schedule
Choose the frequency — every N minutes, daily at a time, specific weekdays, monthly, and so on.
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Watch the expression build
The five-field cron string (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) updates live as you configure.
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Verify in plain English
Read the generated human-readable description to confirm the schedule means what you intend.
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Copy to your crontab
Paste the expression into crontab -e, a Kubernetes CronJob, a GitHub Actions schedule, or any cron-compatible system.
Features of the Crontab Generator
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Visual builder
Compose schedules with dropdowns and toggles instead of hand-writing field syntax.
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Expression decoder
Paste any cron string and get an instant plain-English explanation of when it fires.
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Standard five-field syntax
Output works with Linux/Unix cron, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, and most schedulers.
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Catches silent mistakes
The readable translation exposes off-by-one and wildcard errors before they hit production.
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Common schedule shortcuts
Every minute, hourly, nightly, weekdays, monthly — the patterns you actually need, one click away.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the five fields in a cron expression mean?
In order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 are Sunday). An asterisk means 'every value' for that field.
How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?
Use */5 * * * * — the */5 in the minute field means 'every value divisible by 5'. The same step syntax works in any field, e.g. 0 */2 * * * for every 2 hours.
How do I schedule a job every weekday at 9am?
0 9 * * 1-5 — minute 0, hour 9, any day of month, any month, Monday (1) through Friday (5).
Why didn't my cron job run?
Common causes: the expression means something different than intended (decode it here to check), the server's timezone differs from yours, the command's PATH is minimal under cron, or the crontab line lacks a newline at the end. Check logs via grep CRON /var/log/syslog on most Linux systems.
What does '0 0 * * 0' mean?
At minute 0 of hour 0 on Sunday — i.e., every Sunday at midnight. Paste any expression into the decoder to get this kind of translation instantly.