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Kaspar

Free tools

Cron expression explainer

Paste a cron expression and see what it means, field by field, plus the next five run times in the time zone you choose.

Frequently asked questions

What format does a cron expression have?

Five fields separated by spaces: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12) and day of week (0-7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday). * means every value, */5 every fifth, 1-5 a range and 1,15 a list.

Which time zone does cron use?

Classic crontab uses the server's time zone; many schedulers let you set one. Choose the time zone here to see the next run times as your server would.

What happens when both day of month and day of week are set?

In standard cron, the job runs when either field matches, not only when both match.

How do I notice when a cron job stops running?

With a heartbeat monitor: the job calls a ping URL after each run. Kaspar alerts you when the ping does not arrive on schedule plus a grace time, or when the job reports a failure.