What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, nudging brokers toward MT5. Still, most retail forex traders stayed put. The reason is simple: MT4 works, and people trust what works. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Switching to MT5 means rewriting that entire library, and most traders can't justify the effort.
After testing both platforms side by side, and the differences are smaller than you'd expect. MT5 adds a few extras including more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but chart functionality feels about the same. Unless you need MT5-specific features, MT4 still holds its own.
Getting MT4 configured properly the first time
The install process is quick. Where people waste time is configuration. find more By default, MT4 shows four charts tiled across one window. Clear the lot and start fresh with the pairs you follow.
Templates are worth setting up early. Build your preferred indicators on one chart, then right-click and save as template. Then you can apply it to any new chart without redoing the work. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it saves hours.
Something most people miss: go to Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." By default MT4 displays the bid price by default, which makes your entries look off by the spread amount.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
The strategy tester in MT4 lets you run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the reliability of those results comes down to your tick data. Built-in history data from MetaQuotes is interpolated, meaning it fills in missing ticks mathematically. For anything beyond a rough sanity check, grab third-party tick data.
The "modelling quality" percentage tells you more than the bottom-line PnL. If it's under 90% indicates the results shouldn't be taken seriously. People occasionally show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and wonder why their live results don't match.
Backtesting is where MT4 earns its reputation, but only if you feed it decent data.
Building your own MT4 indicators
MT4 ships with 30 default technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. But where MT4 gets interesting is in user-built indicators coded in MQL4. There are thousands available, ranging from simple moving average variations to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, restart MT4, and you'll find it in the Navigator panel. The risk is reliability. Free indicators are hit-and-miss. Some are well coded and maintained. Some haven't been updated since 2015 and may crash your terminal.
When adding third-party indicators, verify when it was last updated and if users report issues. Bad code won't just give wrong signals — it can lag MT4.
Managing risk properly inside MT4
MT4 has several built-in risk management features that most traders skip over. Probably the most practical one is maximum deviation in the order window. This defines the amount of slippage you're willing to tolerate on market orders. If you don't set it and you'll get whatever price is available.
Everyone knows about stop losses, but the trailing stop function is overlooked. Right-click an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and define a distance. The stop moves when price moves your way. Not perfect for every strategy, but if you're riding trends it takes away the urge to stare at the screen.
None of this is complicated to set up and they remove a lot of the emotional decision-making.
Expert Advisors — before you trust a robot with your money
Automated trading through Expert Advisors sounds appealing: program your strategy and stop staring at charts. In practice, a huge percentage of them fail to deliver over any meaningful time period. Those marketed using flawless equity curves are often fitted to past data — they performed well on the specific data they were tested on and stop working the moment market conditions change.
That doesn't mean all EAs are useless. A few people code personal EAs to handle specific, narrow tasks: time-based entries, managing position sizing, or closing trades at predetermined levels. These smaller, focused scripts tend to work because they execute mechanical tasks without needing discretion.
If you're evaluating EAs, run them on a demo account for a minimum of a few months. Live demo testing is more informative than any backtest.
MT4 on Mac and mobile: what actually works
MT4 is a Windows application at heart. Running it on Mac has always been friction. Previously was emulation, which mostly worked but came with rendering issues and occasional crashes. Certain brokers now offer Mac-specific builds wrapped around Wine under the hood, which are better but remain wrappers at the end of the day.
MT4 mobile, on both Apple and Android devices, are surprisingly capable for watching open trades and managing trades on the move. Serious charting work on a phone screen is pushing it, but closing a trade on the go is worth having.
Look into whether your broker has a native Mac build or just a wrapper — the experience varies a lot between the two.