What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, steering brokers toward MT5. Still, most retail forex traders kept using MT4. The reason is simple: MT4 works, and people trust what works. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Migrating to MT5 means rewriting that entire library, and most traders don't see the point.
I spent time testing MT4 and MT5 side by side, and the differences are marginal for most strategies. MT5 has a few extras including more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the charting is very similar. Unless you need MT5-specific features, MT4 is more than enough.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. Where people waste time is the setup after install. On first launch, MT4 shows four charts crammed into one window. Shut them all and open just the instruments you follow.
Chart templates save time. Build your usual indicators on one chart, then right-click and save as template. Then you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it saves hours.
One setting worth changing: go to Tools > Options > Charts and tick "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price by default, which can make entries appear wrong by the spread amount.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
MT4's built-in strategy tester gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the quality of those results comes down to your tick data. Built-in history data is not real tick data, 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.
Modelling quality tells you more than the bottom-line PnL. If it's under 90% indicates the results aren't trustworthy. Traders sometimes share screenshots with 25% modelling quality and wonder why live trading looks different.
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 standard technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. That said, the platform's actual strength lives in community-made indicators built with MQL4. You can find over 2,000 options, covering everything from tweaked versions of standard tools to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: drop the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, reboot MT4, and you'll find it in the Navigator panel. The catch is quality. Free indicators range from excellent to broken. A few are well coded and maintained. Others are abandoned projects and can freeze your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, verify the last update date and whether other traders report issues. A poorly written indicator doesn't only show wrong data — it can lag MT4.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
MT4 has several built-in risk management features that a lot of people don't bother with. First worth mentioning is maximum deviation in the order window. This defines the amount of slippage is acceptable on market orders. Leave it at zero and you'll get whatever price comes through.
Stop losses are obvious, but the trailing stop function are overlooked. Click on an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and enter the pip amount. Your stop loss follows automatically as price moves in your favour. Not perfect for every strategy, but on trending pairs it reduces the need to stare at the screen.
None of this is complicated to set up and they take some of the guesswork out of trade management.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
Expert Advisors on MT4 have obvious appeal: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In reality, a huge percentage of them fail to deliver over any decent time period. The ones marketed using flawless equity curves tend to be over-optimised — they worked on the specific data they were tested on and fall apart once the market does something different.
None of this means all EAs are a waste of time. Certain traders build custom EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: entering at a specific time, automating position size calculations, or closing trades at set levels. These smaller, focused scripts tend to work because they handle repetitive actions that don't require interpretation.
When looking at Expert Advisors, use a demo account for a minimum of a few months. Running it forward in real time reveals more than any backtest.
MT4 beyond the desktop
MT4 is a Windows application at heart. Running it on Mac deal with compromises. The traditional approach was running it through Wine, which mostly worked but introduced display glitches and stability problems. Some brokers now offer macOS versions wrapped around Wine under the hood, which are better but still aren't true native apps.
On mobile, available for both iPhone and Android, are surprisingly capable for monitoring your account and making quick adjustments. Serious charting work on a 5-inch screen isn't realistic, but adjusting a stop visit here loss from your phone is genuinely handy.
Look into whether your broker has real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the difference in stability is noticeable.