A practical look at MT4 for forex traders
MT4 in 2026: why it refuses find more info to die
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences years ago, steering brokers toward MT5. Still, most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is straightforward: MT4 works, and people trust what works. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts were built for MT4. Switching to MT5 means porting that entire library, and the majority of users don't see the point.
After testing both platforms side by side, and the gap is smaller than you'd expect. MT5 adds a few extras such as more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the core charting is nearly identical. If you're weighing up the two, MT4 is more than enough.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
The install process is quick. Where people waste time is the setup after install. Out of the box, MT4 shows four charts tiled across a single workspace. Clear the lot and open just the markets you follow.
Chart templates save time. Set up your go-to indicators once, then save it as a template. From there you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Sounds trivial, but over time it saves hours.
Something most people miss: open Tools > Options > Charts and tick "Show ask line." By default MT4 displays the bid price by default, which can make entries appear wrong until you realise the ask price is hidden.
How reliable is MT4 backtesting?
MT4 comes with a backtester that gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the reliability of those results hinges on your tick data. Standard history data from MetaQuotes is interpolated, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated with made-up prices. For anything beyond a rough sanity check, grab third-party tick data.
Modelling quality is more important than the profit figure. Below 90% suggests the results aren't trustworthy. Traders sometimes post backtest results with 25% modelling quality and wonder why live trading looks different.
The strategy tester is one of MT4's stronger features, but it's only as good as the data you give it.
MT4 indicators beyond the defaults
MT4 comes with 30 default technical indicators. The average trader uses maybe a handful. But the real depth comes from custom indicators built with MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has thousands available, spanning tweaked versions of standard tools to full trading dashboards.
The install process is painless: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality. Publicly shared indicators vary wildly. A few are genuinely useful. Others stopped working years ago and may crash your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, look at when it was last updated and whether other traders report issues. A broken indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can slow down your entire platform.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
MT4 has some risk management options that the majority of users never configure. First worth mentioning is the maximum deviation setting in the order window. This defines the amount of slippage you're willing to tolerate on market orders. Leave it at zero and you'll get whatever price is available.
Everyone knows about stop losses, but MT4's trailing stop feature are overlooked. Right-click an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and define a distance. The stop follows when the trade goes into profit. Not perfect for every strategy, but for trend-following it takes away the urge to micromanage the trade.
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
Expert Advisors on MT4 sounds appealing: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. The reality is, most EAs lose money over any decent time period. The ones marketed using flawless equity curves are often over-optimised — they worked on the specific data they were tested on and stop working when conditions shift.
This isn't to say all EAs are worthless. Some traders code their own EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: time-based entries, managing position sizing, or exiting positions at predetermined levels. That kind of automation are more reliable because they handle defined operations where you don't need discretion.
Before running any EA with real money, test on demo first for at least a few months. Forward testing tells you more than backtesting alone.
MT4 beyond the desktop
MT4 is a Windows application at heart. Mac users deal with compromises. Previously was Wine or PlayOnMac, which mostly worked but came with visual bugs and stability problems. Some brokers now offer Mac-specific builds wrapped around compatibility layers, which is an improvement but still aren't true native apps.
On mobile, available for both Apple and Android devices, work well for monitoring positions and managing trades on the move. Doing proper analysis on a 5-inch screen isn't realistic, but closing a trade on the go is genuinely handy.
Check whether your broker offers a native Mac build or just a wrapper — the experience varies a lot between the two.