Cron Descriptor

Schedule with clarity. Translate cryptic cron expressions into plain English sentences to ensure your server tasks run exactly when they should.

Cron Expression (5 Fields) Format: min hour day month day-of-week

Human Readable Schedule

Every 15 minutes.

Next Run

In 15 mins

Type

Recurring

Mastering Crontab Syntax

I genuinely believe that the cron system is one of the most powerful and underappreciated tools in Linux. It allows for absolute automation, but its "five-star" syntax is notoriously difficult to memorize. A single mistake in the third field (day of month) versus the fifth field (day of week) can lead to a task running every day instead of once a week.

The Five Fields: From left to right, the fields represent Minutes (0-59), Hours (0-23), Day of Month (1-31), Month (1-12), and Day of Week (0-6, where 0 is Sunday).

Cron Shortcuts:

* (Asterisk): Means "every." For example, an asterisk in the hour field means "every hour."
/ (Slash): Used for intervals. `*/10` in the minutes field means "every 10 minutes."
, (Comma): Used for lists. `1,15,30` means on the 1st, 15th, and 30th.
- (Hyphen): Used for ranges. `1-5` in the day of week field means Monday through Friday.