Last updated
Special Cron Shortcuts
@yearly/@annually— once a year:0 0 1 1 *@monthly— once a month:0 0 1 * *@weekly— once a week:0 0 * * 0@daily/@midnight— once a day:0 0 * * *@hourly— once an hour:0 * * * *@reboot— at system startup (not supported everywhere)
The Cron Expression Tester on TechConverter.me validates any cron expression, shows the next 20 execution times, and provides a human-readable description. Test your expressions before deploying to production to avoid misconfigured schedules that run too often, too rarely, or at the wrong time.
Examples
Example 1: Basic Cron Expression Syntax
A cron expression has five fields (or six with seconds):
Standard cron (5 fields):
┌─────────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌───────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌─────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌───── month (1-12 or JAN-DEC)
│ │ │ │ ┌─── day of week (0-7 or SUN-SAT, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *
Quartz/Spring (6 fields, adds seconds):
┌───────────── second (0-59)
│ ┌─────────── minute (0-59)
│ │ ┌───────── hour (0-23)
│ │ │ ┌─────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ │ ┌─── day of week (1-7 or SUN-SAT)
│ │ │ │ │ │
* * * * * *
Example 2: Common Scheduling Patterns
The tester validates these common patterns and shows the next execution times:
Every minute:
* * * * *
Next: 14:01, 14:02, 14:03, 14:04, 14:05...
Every 15 minutes:
*/15 * * * *
Next: 14:00, 14:15, 14:30, 14:45, 15:00...
Every hour at :30:
30 * * * *
Next: 14:30, 15:30, 16:30, 17:30...
Daily at 9:00 AM:
0 9 * * *
Next: Mon 09:00, Tue 09:00, Wed 09:00...
Weekdays at 9:00 AM:
0 9 * * 1-5
Next: Mon 09:00, Tue 09:00, Wed 09:00, Thu 09:00, Fri 09:00, Mon 09:00...
Every Sunday at midnight:
0 0 * * 0
Next: Sun 00:00, Sun 00:00 (next week)...
First day of every month at 6:00 AM:
0 6 1 * *
Next: Feb 1 06:00, Mar 1 06:00, Apr 1 06:00...
Example 3: Database Backup Schedule
A DevOps engineer needs to schedule a database backup to run every night at 2:00 AM, but not on weekends to reduce costs:
Expression: 0 2 * * 1-5
Tester output:
Human readable: At 02:00 AM, Monday through Friday
Next executions:
Mon 2024-01-15 02:00:00
Tue 2024-01-16 02:00:00
Wed 2024-01-17 02:00:00
Thu 2024-01-18 02:00:00
Fri 2024-01-19 02:00:00
Mon 2024-01-22 02:00:00 ← skips weekend
Tue 2024-01-23 02:00:00
✓ Confirmed: runs weekdays only, skips Saturday and Sunday