About the Handiwork Cron Expression Explainer
The Cron Expression Explainer decodes standard cron schedules into plain English. Paste a five- or six-field expression and see what each field means — minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week — plus an overall summary of when the job would run.
How to use the Handiwork Cron Expression Explainer
- Paste or type a cron expression.
- Try an example preset if you are learning the format.
- Read the summary and per-field breakdown.
Cron field order
A typical five-field cron expression is: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), day of week (0–7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). Some systems add a sixth seconds field at the start. Asterisks mean “every” and slashes define steps like */15 for every 15 minutes.
Why explain cron?
Cron syntax is compact but easy to misread — especially ranges, lists, and step values. Translating an expression before deploying a scheduled job catches off-by-one-hour mistakes and confirms you really meant “weekdays at 9 AM” and not “every nine hours.”
Frequently asked questions
Does this run or validate cron jobs?
It explains what an expression means. It does not execute jobs or connect to your server’s crontab.
Which cron format is supported?
Standard five-field Unix cron (minute hour day month weekday) and optional six-field expressions with a leading seconds field.