Why traders still pick MT4 over newer platforms
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences years ago, pushing brokers toward MT5. Yet most retail forex traders kept using MT4. The reason is not complicated: MT4 works, and people trust what works. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts were built for MT4. Switching to MT5 means rebuilding that entire library, and most traders can't justify the effort.
I spent time testing MT4 and MT5 side by side, and the gap is marginal for most strategies. MT5 adds a few extras such as more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but chart functionality is very similar. Unless you need MT5-specific features, MT4 is more than enough.
Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. The part that trips people up is configuration. By default, MT4 shows four charts crammed into one window. Clear the lot and open just the instruments you actually trade.
Save yourself repeating the same setup by using templates. Configure your preferred indicators on one chart, then save it as a template. Then you can apply it to any new chart without redoing the work. Small thing, but over months 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 can make buy entries seem misaligned until you realise the ask price is hidden.
Backtesting on MT4: what the results actually mean
MT4 comes with a backtester that lets you run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the quality of those results depends entirely on your tick data. Built-in history data is interpolated, meaning the tester fills gaps mathematically. If you're testing something beyond a rough sanity check, download real tick data from a provider see more like Dukascopy.
That quality percentage in the results matters more than the profit figure. Below 90% means the results aren't trustworthy. People occasionally show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out why their live results don't match.
Backtesting is where MT4 earns its reputation, but only if you feed it decent data.
Custom indicators on MT4: worth the effort?
MT4 ships with 30 default technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. But where MT4 gets interesting lives in user-built indicators built with MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has thousands available, spanning basic modifications to full trading dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: drop the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, restart MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. The catch is quality. Publicly shared indicators vary wildly. A few are genuinely useful. Others are abandoned projects and may crash your terminal.
When adding third-party indicators, verify the last update date and whether users report issues. A poorly written indicator doesn't only show wrong data — it can lag MT4.
The MT4 risk controls you're probably not using
There are several built-in risk management features that the majority of users never configure. The most useful is the maximum deviation setting in the order window. This controls how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Without this configured and the broker can fill you at whatever price comes through.
Everyone knows about stop losses, but the trailing stop function is overlooked. Click on an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and define your preferred distance. It adjusts with the trade goes in your favour. Doesn't work well in choppy markets, but for trend-following it removes the temptation to micromanage the trade.
None of this is complicated to set up and the difference in discipline is noticeable over time.
Expert Advisors — before you trust a robot with your money
Automated trading through Expert Advisors sounds appealing: program your strategy and stop staring at charts. In reality, a huge percentage of them lose money over any decent time period. EAs advertised with incredible historical results tend to be fitted to past data — they look great on past prices and break down the moment the market does something different.
That doesn't mean all EAs are a waste of time. Some traders code their own EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: opening trades at session opens, calculating lot sizes, or exiting positions at predetermined levels. These utility-type EAs work because they handle defined operations without needing discretion.
Before running any EA with real money, test on demo first for a minimum of a few months. Live demo testing tells you more than backtesting alone.
MT4 beyond the desktop
MT4 was built for Windows. Running it on Mac deal with compromises. Previously was running it through Wine, which did the job but came with display glitches and the odd crash. Some brokers now offer native Mac apps using Wine under the hood, which work more smoothly but remain wrappers at the end of the day.
MT4 mobile, available for both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for watching open trades and managing trades on the move. Doing proper analysis on a phone screen isn't realistic, but managing exits while away from your desk has saved plenty of traders.
It's worth confirming if your broker provides a proper macOS version or just Wine under the hood — the difference in stability is noticeable.