MT4 after twenty years: an honest take on the platform

Why traders still pick MT4 over newer platforms

MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, steering brokers toward MT5. But most retail forex traders stayed put. 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 can't justify the effort.

I've tested MT4 and MT5 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 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. The part that trips people up is configuration. On first launch, MT4 loads with four charts tiled across the screen. Clear the lot and start fresh with the pairs you care about.

Save yourself repeating the same setup by using templates. Set up your go-to indicators on one chart, then right-click and save as template. After that you can apply it to any new chart in two clicks. Small thing, but over weeks it makes a difference.

One setting worth changing: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." By default MT4 displays the bid price on the chart, which makes your entries look off until you realise the ask price is hidden.

MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations

MT4's built-in strategy tester allows you to run Expert Advisors against historical data. That said: the accuracy of those results hinges on your tick data. Standard history data from MetaQuotes is not real tick data, meaning it fills in missing ticks with made-up prices. If you're testing something that needs accuracy, download proper historical data.

That quality percentage in the results tells you more than the headline profit number. Below 90% means the results are probably misleading. Traders sometimes show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and ask why the EA fails in real conditions.

This is one area where MT4 genuinely outperforms most web-based platforms, but only if you feed it decent data.

Custom indicators on MT4: worth the effort?

MT4 ships with 30 standard technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. However the look at this platform's actual strength comes from user-built indicators built with MQL4. You can find a massive library, covering everything from tweaked versions of standard tools to elaborate signal panels.

The install process is painless: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. The risk is reliability. Community indicators are hit-and-miss. A few are well coded and maintained. Some are abandoned projects and may crash your terminal.

When adding third-party indicators, look at the last update date and if people in the forums have flagged problems. A broken indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can freeze MT4.

The MT4 risk controls you're probably not using

There are several built-in risk management options that most traders don't bother with. The most useful is maximum deviation in the new order panel. This defines how much slippage is acceptable on market orders. If you don't set it and the broker can fill you at whatever price is available.

Stop losses go without saying, but the trailing stop function is underused. Click on an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and set a distance. The stop moves automatically as price moves into profit. Doesn't work well in choppy markets, but if you're riding trends it reduces the need to micromanage the trade.

You can configure all of this in under five minutes and the difference in discipline is noticeable over time.

EAs on MT4: what to realistically expect

EAs sounds appealing: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In practice, a huge percentage of them lose money over any extended time period. The ones marketed using flawless equity curves tend to be over-optimised — they worked on past prices and break down once conditions shift.

None of this means all EAs are useless. A few people code their own EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: opening trades at session opens, automating position size calculations, or taking profit at fixed levels. These smaller, focused scripts work because they handle repetitive actions where you don't need interpretation.

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 on Mac and mobile: what actually works

The platform was designed for Windows. Running it on Mac deal with compromises. Previously was Wine or PlayOnMac, which was functional but introduced visual bugs and occasional crashes. Some brokers now offer Mac-specific builds built on Crossover or similar wrappers, which is an improvement but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.

The mobile apps, available for both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for watching positions and managing trades on the move. Serious charting work on a 5-inch screen is pushing it, but closing a trade while away from your desk is worth having.

It's worth confirming if your broker provides real Mac support or a compatibility layer — it makes a real difference day to day.