Decode cron expressions into plain English, preview upcoming run times, and verify 5/6/7-field crontab schedules before deployment.
Updated
Quick start
Type or paste an expression, see plain-English meaning and the next ten run times.
Paste a 5-or-6-field cron expression, or tap a preset to start from a common schedule.
The brand-coloured box translates the expression to English. Field tiles show what each position contains.
The list at the bottom shows the next ten fire times in your local timezone — useful sanity check before deploying.
In-depth guide
Decode any 5- or 6-field cron expression into plain English and see the next ten run times in your local timezone. Click a preset to drop in a common schedule; tweak it and watch the description update live.
* any value · , list (1,15,30) · - range (1-5) · / step (*/15)| Field | Range | Aliases |
|---|---|---|
| second (optional) | 0-59 | — |
| minute | 0-59 | — |
| hour | 0-23 | — |
| day of month | 1-31 | — |
| month | 1-12 | JAN-DEC |
| day of week | 0-6 (0 = Sun) | SUN-SAT, 7 also = Sun |
| Expression | Schedule |
|---|---|
* * * * * | Every minute |
*/5 * * * * | Every 5 minutes |
0 * * * * | Top of every hour |
0 9 * * 1-5 | Weekdays at 9am |
0 0 1 * * | First of every month at midnight |
0 0 * * 0 | Every Sunday at midnight |
30 2 * * * | Every day at 2:30am |
0 0 13 * 5 means "midnight on the 13th OR every Friday".*/15 on hour means 0, 15, 30, 45 — not every 15th tick of an arbitrary cycle.L last, W nearest weekday, # Nth weekday — these are NOT supported.When to reach for it. Use it to decode what a cron schedule actually runs and to preview the next fire times before deploying it.
When something else is better. Cron dialects differ (5-field vs 6-field, Quartz, systemd timers) — confirm which your scheduler uses.
The pitfall to watch. Day-of-month and day-of-week together behave with an OR in standard cron, which surprises people expecting AND.
Everything runs on your device. The values you enter are processed locally in this browser tab — EpitomeTool does not send your input to a server, store it, or log it. That means you can use the tool offline once the page has loaded, and refreshing the tab wipes the slate.
No. Parsing, humanization and next-run calculation all happen in your browser. No requests fire.
Classic 5-field Vixie cron (minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week) and 6-field with leading seconds. Supports *, , - / and named months/weekdays (JAN, MON, ...).
These are Quartz extensions used by Spring schedulers and some Java frameworks — not standard cron. Not supported here. Use unix-style expressions if running on a real cron daemon.
We walk forward minute-by-minute (or second-by-second for 6-field) starting from now, checking each field. The first 10 matches are shown in your local timezone.
When both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted (not *), Vixie cron uses OR — the job runs when either matches. If neither is restricted, both must match (which is trivially true). Our parser follows this convention.
Yes — we use the browser's Date arithmetic which respects daylight saving. Jobs scheduled during the lost hour on spring-forward day are skipped, matching standard cron behaviour.
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