Cron Expression Parser – Next Run Times

Explain Unix five-field cron schedules and preview their next five occurrences in UTC or your browser's local time zone—without running a job or uploading input.

Runs locally

Minute (0–59) · Hour (0–23) · Day of month (1–31) · Month (1–12) · Weekday (0–7, Sunday 0/7). Numeric values only. `*`, lists, ranges, and steps are supported.

Dialect: five-field Unix crontab, with OR semantics when both day-of-month and weekday are restricted. Not a Cloudflare, Quartz, or six-field compatibility checker. Time zone affects actual future run times.

Enter an expression and select Preview

Common examples

Next 5 execution times

No preview yet. Run a five-field expression to see the next scheduled times.

Daylight saving time: skipped local hours do not run; repeated hours can produce two separate run instants. Cron behavior varies by scheduler, so verify deployment-specific semantics.

Cron schedule guide

How to read a five-field Unix Cron expression

Enter five space-separated numeric fields for minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. Preview shows the next five instants in the selected time zone. All parsing runs in your browser. This tool is free to use. No account or payment is required.

Last updated

What you can do here

  • Five-field numeric Unix Cron
  • Field validation and error messages
  • Plain-English explanation
  • Next five run times
  • UTC and browser local time
  • Local DST transition support
  • Browser-local processing

How to use

  1. Enter a five-field expression such as 0 2 * * * or choose an example.
  2. Select UTC or browser local time, then click Preview next 5 runs.
  3. Review the schedule meaning and future instants; copy the expression or run-time list.
  4. Check your actual scheduler's dialect and time-zone rules before deploying.

Unix crontab fields and weekdays

The fields are minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), and day of week (0–7 with 0 and 7 meaning Sunday). Numeric lists, ascending ranges, step values, and * are supported.

When both day-of-month and day-of-week are restricted, this parser uses the traditional Unix crontab OR rule. For example, a job restricted to day 1 and Monday can run on either a first-of-month or a Monday.

Time zones and daylight saving time

UTC mode is independent of the browser's local settings. Local mode uses the browser's actual time zone. The preview skips local clock times that do not exist at the spring DST transition and includes both occurrences of repeated times at the autumn transition.

Cloudflare Cron Triggers and Quartz expressions can use different time-zone and calendar rules. This Unix parser does not silently treat them as equivalent or accept six/seven-field syntax, aliases, or special date modifiers.

Daily Cron example

Run at 02:00 on each day of every month according to the selected time zone.

Expression

0 2 * * *

Interpretation

At 02:00 every day (selected time zone).

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

Does this tool create or run scheduled jobs?

No. It only parses an expression and previews times; it cannot deploy a cron job or execute a command.

Does this parser support Cloudflare Cron or Quartz?

No dialect compatibility is guaranteed. This MVP implements numeric five-field Unix crontab syntax and OR semantics for the two day fields.

What happens when a local time is skipped or repeated by daylight saving?

A missing local clock time is skipped. If a local clock time occurs twice, both actual instants are shown when they fall among the next five matches.

Does my expression get uploaded?

No. Parsing and run-time calculation happen in your browser. Expression text is not included in anonymous tool-event payloads.

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