Cron Next Run Calculator NZ
This tool works out the next run times for a cron schedule, turning a cryptic cron expression into a clear list of the actual dates and times it will fire. Cron is the time-based scheduler used across Unix and Linux systems and countless tools to run jobs automatically, but its terse five-field syntax makes it genuinely hard to picture when a schedule will actually trigger. A small mistake can mean a backup runs at the wrong time, or a job fires far more often than intended, and you often will not notice until something breaks. Seeing the upcoming run times spelled out removes the guesswork. This calculator parses your cron expression and steps forward from the current moment, finding each time that satisfies all five fields, the minute, hour, day of the month, month and day of the week, and lists the next several runs as full dates and times. You enter the cron expression and how many upcoming runs you want to see, and the list updates as you type, so you can adjust the schedule and immediately confirm it behaves as you expect. Use it to validate a new schedule before you deploy it, to understand an existing crontab you have inherited, or to learn how cron timing works by experimenting. The times shown use your device's local clock, so they reflect your own time zone. The standard syntax applies: an asterisk means every value, a slash sets a step such as every fifth minute, a hyphen gives a range, and a comma gives a list. Confirming the real run times before relying on a schedule saves a great deal of trouble later, and is far quicker than waiting to see when the job actually fires.
Five fields: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week. Times use your device's local clock. * = every, */n = step, a-b = range, a,b = list.
How it works
Each of the five fields is expanded into the set of values it allows. Starting from the next whole minute, the calculator steps forward minute by minute and checks whether the minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week all match the schedule. Each matching moment is added to the list until it has found the number of upcoming runs you asked for.
Worked example
The expression 0 9 * * 1-5 means at 9:00 am on weekdays. Asking for five runs lists the next five weekday mornings at 9:00, skipping weekends. Because the times are computed from your device clock, they appear in your local time zone, so you see exactly when the job will fire next.
Related calculators
- Cron Explainer: cron in plain English.
- Unix Timestamp: epoch time.
- Date Calculator: work with dates.
- Countdown to Date: days until a date.