What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences some time ago, pushing brokers toward MT5. Still, most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is not complicated: MT4 has twenty years of muscle memory behind it. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts only work with MT4. Switching to MT5 means porting that entire library, and the majority of users would rather keep trading than recoding.
After testing both platforms side by side, and the differences are marginal for most strategies. MT5 adds a few extras such as more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the core charting is nearly identical. For most retail strategies, MT4 still holds its own.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Installation takes a few minutes. What actually causes problems is the setup after install. By default, MT4 opens with four charts crammed into one window. Shut them all and start fresh with the markets you follow.
Templates are worth setting up early. Configure your go-to indicators once, then save it as a template. From there you can load it onto other charts instantly. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it makes a difference.
A quick tweak that helps: open Tools > Options > Charts and tick "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price on the chart, which makes entries appear wrong by the spread amount.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
The strategy tester in MT4 gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the accuracy of those results depends entirely on your tick data. Standard history data is not real tick data, meaning it fills in missing ticks using algorithms. For anything that needs accuracy, you need real tick data from a provider like Dukascopy.
That quality percentage in the results is more important than the profit figure. If it's under 90% suggests the results aren't trustworthy. People occasionally show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and wonder why the EA fails in real conditions.
The strategy tester is one of MT4's stronger features, but the output is only useful with quality tick data.
Custom indicators on MT4: worth the effort?
MT4 ships with 30 built-in technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. However the platform's actual strength lives in custom indicators built with MQL4. You can find a massive library, covering everything from tweaked versions of standard tools to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: drop the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and you'll find it in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is reliability. Publicly shared indicators vary wildly. A few are well coded and maintained. Many haven't been updated since 2015 and can freeze your terminal.
Before installing anything, look at the last update date and if people in the forums report issues. A broken indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can slow down your entire platform.
Managing risk properly inside MT4
MT4 has several built-in risk management features that the majority of users skip over. First worth mentioning is maximum deviation in the trade execution window. This controls how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Leave it at zero and the broker can fill you at whatever price comes through.
Everyone knows about stop losses, but MT4's trailing stop feature are overlooked. Click on an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and set your preferred distance. It moves automatically as price moves in your favour. It won't find more suit every approach, but if you're riding trends it takes away the need to micromanage the trade.
None of this is complicated to set up and they take some of the guesswork out of trade management.
EAs on MT4: what to realistically expect
Automated trading through Expert Advisors have obvious appeal: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors lose money over any decent time period. Those marketed using perfect backtest curves tend to be fitted to past data — they look great on historical data and stop working the moment the market does something different.
This isn't to say all EAs are a waste of time. A few people code custom EAs for specific, narrow tasks: entering at a specific time, calculating lot sizes, or taking profit at set levels. That kind of automation are more reliable because they execute repetitive actions where you don't need judgment.
Before running any EA with real money, test on demo first for a minimum of a few months. Running it forward in real time reveals more than backtesting alone.
Using MT4 outside Windows
MT4 was built for Windows. Running it on Mac face compromises. The old method was Wine or PlayOnMac, which did the job but came with display glitches and occasional crashes. Some brokers now offer Mac-specific builds wrapped around compatibility layers, which work more smoothly but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.
On mobile, on both Apple and Android devices, work well for monitoring your account and managing trades on the move. Serious charting work on a phone screen doesn't really work, but managing exits on the go has saved plenty of traders.
Check whether your broker offers real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the difference in stability is noticeable.