MT4 after twenty years: an honest take on the platform

MT4 in 2026: why it refuses to die

MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences some time ago, nudging brokers toward MT5. But most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is straightforward: MT4 has twenty years of muscle memory behind it. A huge library of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Migrating 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 differences are less dramatic than the marketing suggests. MT5 adds a few extras like more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the core charting is nearly identical. If you're weighing up the two, MT4 still holds its own.

Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches

The install process is quick. What actually causes problems is the setup after install. On first launch, MT4 shows four charts squeezed onto one window. Close all of them and open just the instruments you care about.

Templates are worth setting up early. Set up your usual indicators once, read this then right-click and save as template. Then you can load it onto other charts without redoing the work. Small thing, but over weeks it makes a difference.

A quick tweak that helps: open Tools > Options > Charts and check "Show ask line." MT4 only shows the bid price by default, which makes your entries look off by the spread amount.

Backtesting on MT4: what the results actually mean

The strategy tester in MT4 allows you to run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the accuracy of those results comes down to your tick data. Standard history data from MetaQuotes is not real tick data, meaning it fills in missing ticks mathematically. For anything beyond a rough sanity check, download real tick data from a provider like Dukascopy.

Modelling quality is more important than the headline profit number. Below 90% indicates the results shouldn't be taken seriously. People occasionally show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out why their live results don't match.

The strategy tester is one of MT4's stronger features, but it's only as good as the data you give it.

Building your own MT4 indicators

MT4 ships with 30 standard technical indicators. The average trader uses maybe a handful. That said, the real depth is in community-made indicators coded in MQL4. You can find over 2,000 options, spanning simple moving average variations to elaborate signal panels.

Adding a custom indicator is simple: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, restart MT4, and you'll find it in the Navigator panel. The catch is quality control. Free indicators range from excellent to broken. A few are well coded and maintained. Many haven't been updated since 2015 and can freeze your terminal.

If you're downloading custom indicators, check when it was last updated and whether people in the forums mention bugs. Bad code doesn't only show wrong data — it can freeze MT4.

Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore

MT4 has some risk management features that the majority of users skip over. Probably the most practical one is the maximum deviation setting in the new order panel. This controls the amount of slippage is acceptable on market orders. If you don't set it and you'll get whatever price comes through.

Stop losses are obvious, but the trailing stop function is underused. Right-click an open trade, select Trailing Stop, and set a distance. Your stop loss follows when the trade goes in your favour. Not perfect for every strategy, but on trending pairs it takes away the need to stare at the screen.

None of this is complicated to set up and they remove a lot of the emotional decision-making.

EAs on MT4: what to realistically expect

Expert Advisors on MT4 have obvious appeal: define your rules and let the machine execute. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors underperform over any meaningful time period. The ones advertised with flawless equity curves are usually over-optimised — they look great on historical data and break down when market conditions change.

This isn't to say all EAs are a waste of time. Some traders build personal EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: opening trades at session opens, calculating lot sizes, or exiting positions at fixed levels. These smaller, focused scripts tend to work because they handle mechanical tasks that don't require interpretation.

When looking at Expert Advisors, run them on a demo account for no less than a few months. Live demo testing tells you more than any backtest.

Using MT4 outside Windows

The platform was designed for Windows. Running it on Mac deal with compromises. The old method was Wine or PlayOnMac, which did the job but had visual bugs and occasional crashes. A few brokers now offer native Mac apps built on compatibility layers, which is an improvement but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.

MT4 mobile, available for both iOS and Android, work well for keeping an eye on positions and managing trades on the move. Doing proper analysis on a mobile device isn't realistic, but closing a trade from your phone has saved plenty of traders.

It's worth confirming if your broker provides a native Mac build or just a wrapper — the experience varies a lot between the two.