What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, nudging brokers toward MT5. Yet most retail forex traders kept using MT4. The reason is simple: MT4 does one thing well. A huge library of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts were built for MT4. Migrating to MT5 means rewriting that entire library, and most traders would rather keep trading than recoding.
I spent time testing MT4 and MT5 side by side, and the gap is less dramatic than the marketing suggests. MT5 adds a few extras such as more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the charting feels very similar. If you're weighing up the two, MT4 is more than enough.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. The part that trips mt4 brokers people up is getting everything configured correctly. By default, MT4 loads with four charts tiled across the screen. Close all of them and open just the markets you follow.
Chart templates save time. Set up your go-to indicators once, then right-click and save as template. From there you can apply it to any new chart instantly. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it makes a difference.
Something most people miss: go to Tools > Options > Charts and tick "Show ask line." MT4 only shows the bid price by default, which makes buy entries seem misaligned by the spread amount.
Backtesting on MT4: what the results actually mean
MT4's built-in strategy tester gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the accuracy of those results hinges on your tick data. Built-in history data is modelled, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated mathematically. If you're testing something that needs accuracy, download real tick data from a provider like Dukascopy.
The "modelling quality" percentage tells you more than the profit figure. Below 90% indicates the results aren't trustworthy. People occasionally share screenshots with 25% modelling quality and wonder why live trading looks different.
Backtesting is where MT4 earns its reputation, but the output is only useful with quality tick data.
MT4 indicators beyond the defaults
MT4 ships with 30 built-in technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. That said, the platform's actual strength is in user-built indicators coded in MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has over 2,000 options, spanning simple moving average variations to elaborate signal panels.
Adding a custom indicator is simple: place the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, restart MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality. Community indicators range from excellent to broken. Some are genuinely useful. Some are abandoned projects and may crash your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, check when it was last updated and if users have flagged problems. Bad code doesn't only show wrong data — it can lag MT4.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
MT4 has a few native risk management options that the majority of users don't bother with. The most useful is maximum deviation in the order window. It sets how much slippage you're willing to tolerate on market orders. Without this configured and the broker can fill you at whatever price is available.
Stop losses go without saying, but MT4's trailing stop feature is overlooked. Click on an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and define the pip amount. It follows with the trade goes in your favour. It won't suit every approach, but if you're riding trends it reduces the temptation to stare at the screen.
You can configure all of this in under five minutes and they remove a lot of the emotional decision-making.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
Expert Advisors on MT4 attract traders for obvious reasons: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. The reality is, the majority of Expert Advisors fail to deliver over any decent time period. Those sold with perfect backtest curves are usually curve-fitted — they performed well on the specific data they were tested on and fall apart when the market does something different.
None of this means all EAs are useless. Certain traders build their own EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: opening trades at session opens, calculating lot sizes, or taking profit at fixed levels. These smaller, focused scripts are more reliable because they handle repetitive actions without needing interpretation.
Before running any EA with real money, run them on a demo account for at least two to three months. Forward testing reveals more than historical results ever will.
Using MT4 outside Windows
MT4 was built for Windows. If you're on macOS deal with a workaround. Previously was Wine or PlayOnMac, which did the job but came with display glitches and the odd crash. Certain brokers now offer Mac-specific builds wrapped around Crossover or similar wrappers, which is an improvement but still aren't true native apps.
On mobile, available for both iPhone and Android, are surprisingly capable for watching positions and making quick adjustments. Full analysis on a 5-inch screen is pushing it, but closing a trade on the go is genuinely handy.
It's worth confirming if your broker provides real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the difference in stability is noticeable.