TSToolSphere
Back to all articles
glossary

What is Cron? A Practical Definition

2026-07-283 min read

Try it: free Cron Descriptor & Generator

Parse complex crontab schedule expressions into plain English descriptions.

Open →

What is Cron?

Cron is a time-based job scheduler on Unix-like systems, configured with a five-field expression — minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week — that defines when a command should run. It has been the standard way to schedule recurring tasks (backups, cleanup scripts, reports) since the 1970s.

Example

0 9 * * 1-5 runs a job at 9:00 AM every weekday.

Related tool

Try it on ToolSphere — runs entirely in your browser, nothing is uploaded to a server.

Looking for other tools?

Explore ToolSphere Homepage →