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Crontab Translator — Cron Expression to Plain English Online

Translate a cron expression to plain English and preview the next 5 fire times. Supports standard 5-field and 6-field with seconds.

Free No signup Client-side Privacy friendly Updated

Plain English

Fix the expression to see the description.

Field order

minute · hour · day-of-month · month · day-of-week

second · minute · hour · day-of-month · month · day-of-week

Next 5 fire times

No matches within the next year.

How to use

  1. 1 Type or paste a cron expression. The English translation and the next 5 fire times update as you type.
  2. 2 Use the 6-field toggle if your scheduler supports seconds (Spring, Quartz, Nest schedules).
  3. 3 Click any next-fire-time to copy it — useful for ticket tracker comments.

Why use this tool

  • Pure browser parser, no third-party "cronstrue" dependency or remote calls.
  • Standard 5-field plus optional 6-field with seconds — covers Vixie cron, Quartz, and Nest schedules.
  • Validates the expression inline — typos surface before you deploy.
  • Day-of-month and day-of-week follow the classic Vixie OR semantics when both restricted.

Frequently asked questions

What does 0 9 * * 1-5 mean?

At 09:00 on Monday through Friday (weekdays).

Does this support @hourly / @daily aliases?

Not yet — expand them yourself: @hourly = 0 * * * *, @daily = 0 0 * * *, @weekly = 0 0 * * 0, @monthly = 0 0 1 * *, @yearly = 0 0 1 1 *.

Why are fire times shown in my local zone?

The browser does not know what server timezone your cron runs in. Convert with our Timezone Converter if your scheduler runs in UTC.

What about L (last) and W (weekday) modifiers?

Those are Quartz extensions. The parser does not support them yet — file a request and we will add them.

What is Crontab Translator?

A Crontab Translator (also called a cron expression decoder) is a tool that converts a 5-field or 6-field cron schedule into a plain-English description like "Every weekday at 03:30" and computes the next firing times. It catches off-by-one mistakes — accidentally scheduling at 0 instead of every hour — before the cron rule ever reaches a production scheduler.

Features

Cron to English

Read "0 9 * * 1-5" as a sentence instead of decoding fields by hand.

Next run times

Preview the upcoming fire times so you can confirm the schedule.

100% private

Parsing runs client-side — your expression never leaves the browser.

Example

Input

0 9 * * 1-5

Output

At 09:00 AM, Monday through Friday

Common use cases

  1. 1

    Verify a cron job

    Confirm a crontab line actually runs when you intend before deploying it.

  2. 2

    Learn cron syntax

    See how ranges, steps, and lists map to real schedule times.

  3. 3

    Document schedules

    Get a human-readable description to drop into runbooks or PRs.

How Crontab Translator compares to alternatives

Crontab Translator versus typical browser and desktop alternatives — features compared at a glance.
Feature Zerethon Tools Typical online tools Desktop apps
5-field (standard) syntax Yes Yes Yes
6-field (with seconds) Yes Sometimes Yes
Next-fire-time preview Next 5 Next 1–3 Yes
Plain-English explanation Yes Yes Sometimes
Free Yes Yes Free (IDE plugins)
Summary

Zerethon's crontab translator turns a cron expression into plain English and lists the next scheduled run times, in your browser. It parses the standard five-field cron syntax (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week). Nothing is uploaded.

Category
Developer
Pricing
Free
Privacy
Browser-based
Signup
Not required

References

Privacy

Your data never leaves your browser unless explicitly stated. Crontab Translator runs entirely client-side — no server upload, no logging, no tracking of your input.

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