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 haven't moved. The reason is not complicated: MT4 does one thing well. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts only work with MT4. Moving to MT5 means porting 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 like more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but more help chart functionality feels nearly identical. For most retail strategies, MT4 still holds its own.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. Where people waste time is configuration. On first launch, MT4 opens with four charts tiled across a single workspace. Close all of them and open just the instruments you actually trade.
Chart templates save time. Build your preferred indicators on one chart, then right-click and save as template. Then you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Minor detail, but over weeks it saves hours.
Something most people miss: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price by default, which makes 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. Worth noting though: the quality of those results comes down to your tick data. The default history data is modelled, meaning it fills in missing ticks using algorithms. If you're testing something more precise than a quick look, download real tick data from a provider like Dukascopy.
The "modelling quality" percentage is more important than the bottom-line PnL. If it's under 90% suggests the results aren't trustworthy. I've seen people show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and wonder why their live results don't match.
Backtesting is where MT4 earns its reputation, but it's only as good as the data you give it.
Building your own MT4 indicators
MT4 comes with 30 standard technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. But the real depth lives in community-made indicators written in MQL4. There are a massive library, ranging from simple moving average variations to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
The install process is painless: place the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, reboot MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality. Community indicators are hit-and-miss. Some are genuinely useful. Some haven't been updated since 2015 and can freeze your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, verify the last update date and if users report issues. Bad code doesn't only show wrong data — it can lag MT4.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
You'll find several built-in risk management tools that a lot of people skip over. First worth mentioning is maximum deviation in the trade execution window. This defines how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Without this configured and you'll get whatever price comes through.
Stop losses go without saying, but trailing stops are worth exploring. Click on an open trade, select Trailing Stop, and define your preferred distance. It moves automatically as price moves in your favour. Doesn't work well in choppy markets, 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.
Expert Advisors — before you trust a robot with your money
EAs have obvious appeal: program your strategy and stop staring at charts. In practice, a huge percentage of them lose money over any extended time period. EAs sold with perfect backtest curves are often fitted to past data — they performed well on past prices and fall apart once the market does something different.
None of this means all EAs are a waste of time. Some traders develop custom EAs to handle one particular setup: time-based entries, managing position sizing, or taking profit at fixed levels. These smaller, focused scripts work because they handle repetitive actions without needing judgment.
Before running any EA with real money, run them on a demo account for at least a few months. Forward testing is more informative than historical results ever will.
MT4 beyond the desktop
MT4 was built for Windows. If you're on macOS deal with friction. The traditional approach was running it through Wine, which did the job but came with visual bugs and occasional crashes. A few brokers now offer Mac-specific builds using Crossover or similar wrappers, which are better but still aren't true native apps.
MT4 mobile, on both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for keeping an eye on positions and making quick adjustments. Serious charting work on a phone screen is pushing it, but managing exits on the go has saved plenty of traders.
It's worth confirming if your broker provides real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the difference in stability is noticeable.