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cron → english · 5 or 6 fields · ranges · steps · live

Translate cron to plain English

Decode any Unix cron expression into a human-readable sentence. Ranges, steps, lists and named months are all explained. Runs entirely in your browser.

Cron → Human
Input
16 B
1 lines
Output
109 B
3 lines
Status
ready
live
Ratio
6.81×
out/in
input · cron expression
output · english
At minute */5, of hour 9-17, on every day of every month (from Monday to Friday).

Original: */5 9-17 * * 1-5
Quick Start

How cron parsing works

Standard Unix cron has five fields: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week. A six-field variant adds a seconds prefix. We name each field, expand steps (every N), ranges (from A to B) and lists (A, B, C).

  1. 01

    Paste expression

    Five fields for Unix cron, six for the Quartz-style seconds variant.

    Parsing is strict-but-tolerant — comments and trailing commas are accepted on input where the source format historically permits them; output stays canonical.

    inputstricttolerantliveparse
    in · sourcecron · live
    */5 9-17 * * 1-5
    loaded · parsedtarget · ready
  2. 02

    Per-field decoding

    Each position translates with its field-specific vocabulary — minutes, hours, days, months, weekdays.

    Conversion preserves type information where the target supports it (numbers stay numeric, booleans stay boolean) so the destination parser never has to re-coerce.

    fieldstype-preservinglosslesslivememoised
    5 cells · optionsnamed · live
    min · hr · dom · mo · dow
    options applied · liveround-trip
  3. 03

    Ranges and steps

    1-5 becomes from Monday to Friday; */5 becomes every 5 minutes.

    Re-encoding is idempotent: running output back through the same converter produces the same bytes, which keeps round-trips git-friendly.

    expandidempotentround-tripdiff-cleandeterministic
    range · convertedstep · ready
    1-5 → Mon..Fri
*/5 → every 5 min
    converted · livediff-clean
  4. 04

    Read the sentence

    The output reads like an English description plus the original expression for reference.

    Copy writes via navigator.clipboard.writeText; downloads use the target’s native MIME so editors apply the right syntax highlighting on open.

    readclipboardtarget MIMEblobclient-side
    ✓ · copiedready · done
    ✓ Decoded
    shipped · ready to shipsuccess
Pro tips

Converting between formats, safely

Pick the strictest source format

Lossy formats hide bugs. Choose JSON or YAML as your source-of-truth, convert downstream as needed.

Round-trip in CI

If your converter is idempotent, your CI can verify A → B → A equals the original. Catches subtle data loss.

Numbers vs strings differ

YAML/TOML have a number type; CSV doesn’t. Quote IDs in CSV to keep leading-zero values intact.

Watch character encoding

Source format may be Latin-1 / Windows-1252; target should be UTF-8. Convert encoding before structure.

Preserve comments where you can

YAML and TOML support comments. Don’t silently drop them — they often encode intent.

Schema-aware beats blind

Use a schema to guide conversion. Field types, required-ness, and defaults survive better with structure.

Related toolsCron ↔ QuartzTimestamp to DateDate FormatUnix PermissionsDocker → ComposeENV to JSON
Use Cases

When to decode cron

Ops, CI/CD, debugging schedules.

On-call review

Confirm a job runs only on weekdays before paging. Type information survives: numbers stay numeric, booleans stay boolean, strings stay strings. The destination parser doesn't have to re-coerce, which avoids the "'true' becomes "true"" bug class.

round-trip safe

CI maintenance

Read GitLab CI / Jenkins schedules quickly. Run output back through the inverse converter to verify idempotent round-trips in CI. A → B → A should produce byte-identical input — if it doesn't, you've found data loss.

type-preserving

Code review

Sanity-check a teammate's crontab change in a PR. Comments and metadata survive where the target format supports them (YAML, TOML, HCL). The tool doesn't silently drop intent-encoded annotations, which keeps your config self-documenting.

schema-aware

Kubernetes CronJob

Validate spec.schedule before applying a manifest. Pair with a schema (JSON Schema, OpenAPI, Zod, Pydantic) to catch shape drift on either side. Catch breaking changes at conversion time rather than at runtime in production.

k8s

Backup audit

Verify nightly backups actually trigger at the right hour. Output respects target-format conventions: quoting in CSV, indent in YAML, brackets in JSON. Existing parsers don't need patches, and the result drops into legacy pipelines unchanged.

diff-clean

Teaching

Explain cron syntax to new engineers with a worked example. Encoding-aware: handles UTF-8 vs UTF-16 vs Latin-1 / Windows-1252 transparently. The character-set surprise that breaks "works on my machine" doesn't apply here.

spec-grade
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Yes — the seconds prefix used by Spring and some BSD crons is detected automatically.
Not yet — expand the alias to its 5-field form first (for example @daily → 0 0 * * *).
For Quartz expressions use the Cron ↔ Quartz converter, which understands the ? wildcard and 1-7 day numbering.
Cron itself carries no timezone — the explanation assumes the schedule runs in whatever timezone the daemon uses.
No. Parsing happens locally in your browser.
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