What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences years ago, steering brokers toward MT5. Still, most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is straightforward: MT4 works, and people trust what works. A huge library of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts only work with MT4. Migrating to MT5 means rebuilding that entire library, and most traders don't see the point.
After testing both platforms 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 feels about the same. Unless you need MT5-specific features, there's no compelling reason to switch.
Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches
Installation takes a few minutes. Where people waste time is configuration. On first launch, MT4 shows four charts tiled across one window. Shut them all and start fresh with the pairs you actually trade.
Templates are worth setting up early. Set up your usual indicators on one chart, then save it as a template. Then you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Small thing, but over time it makes a difference.
One setting worth changing: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price on the chart, which makes entries appear wrong by the spread amount.
How reliable is MT4 backtesting?
MT4 comes with a backtester that allows you 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 the tester fills gaps with made-up prices. For anything more precise than a quick look, grab third-party tick data.
That quality percentage in the results matters more than the profit figure. Below 90% suggests the results aren't trustworthy. Traders sometimes show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out 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.
Building your own MT4 indicators
MT4 comes with 30 standard technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. However where MT4 gets interesting is in user-built indicators written in MQL4. There are a massive library, ranging from tweaked versions of standard tools to elaborate signal panels.
Adding a custom indicator is simple: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and you'll find it in the Navigator panel. The catch is reliability. Free indicators vary wildly. A few are genuinely useful. Many stopped working years ago and may crash your terminal.
Before installing anything, look at the last update date and if people in the forums have flagged problems. Bad code won't just give wrong signals — read this article it can slow down the whole terminal.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
There are some risk management features that the majority of users skip over. The most useful is maximum deviation in the new order panel. This defines the amount of slippage you'll accept on market orders. Leave it at zero and you'll get whatever price comes through.
Stop losses are obvious, but trailing stops is underused. Right-click an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and enter a distance. The stop moves automatically as the trade goes into profit. Doesn't work well in choppy markets, but if you're riding trends it takes away the temptation 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: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In practice, a huge percentage of them fail to deliver over any decent time period. Those advertised with perfect backtest curves tend to be over-optimised — they performed well on past prices and stop working the moment conditions shift.
That doesn't mean all EAs are useless. A few people code custom EAs for specific, narrow tasks: entering at a specific time, managing position sizing, or exiting positions at fixed levels. These utility-type EAs tend to work because they handle repetitive actions where you don't need discretion.
When looking at Expert Advisors, test on demo first for no less than a few months. Live demo testing is more informative than historical results ever will.
Using MT4 outside Windows
MT4 is a Windows application at heart. Running it on Mac deal with friction. The traditional approach was Wine or PlayOnMac, which was functional but came with rendering issues and the odd crash. A few brokers now offer Mac-specific builds built on Crossover or similar wrappers, which is an improvement but still aren't true native apps.
On mobile, available for both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for keeping an eye on positions and tweaking stops. Doing proper analysis on a phone screen isn't realistic, but adjusting a stop loss from your phone is worth having.
Look into whether your broker has real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the experience varies a lot between the two.