What keeps MT4 relevant after two decades
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences some time ago, pushing brokers toward MT5. But most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is simple: MT4 works, and people trust what works. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts only work with MT4. Migrating to MT5 means rebuilding that entire library, and few people would rather keep trading than recoding.
I spent time testing MT4 and MT5 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 is nearly identical. If you're weighing up the two, MT4 is more than enough.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. What actually causes problems is getting everything configured correctly. Out of the box, MT4 opens with four charts tiled across a single workspace. Close all of them and start fresh with the instruments you actually trade.
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. From there you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Minor detail, but over time it makes a difference.
A quick tweak that helps: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price by default, which makes your entries look off by the spread amount.
How reliable is MT4 backtesting?
MT4's built-in strategy tester gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. That said: the quality of those results comes down to your tick data. Standard history data is interpolated, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated using algorithms. If you're testing something beyond a rough sanity check, you need third-party tick data.
The "modelling quality" percentage is more important than the profit figure. Below 90% indicates the results shouldn't be taken seriously. Traders sometimes post backtest results 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.
Building your own MT4 indicators
MT4 ships with 30 standard technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. That said, the platform's actual strength comes from user-built indicators written in MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has over 2,000 options, spanning tweaked versions of standard tools to elaborate signal panels.
Adding a custom indicator is simple: drop the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, reboot MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. The catch is reliability. Community indicators are hit-and-miss. A few are well coded and maintained. Some haven't been updated since 2015 and will crash your terminal.
Before installing anything, look at when it was last updated and whether users have flagged problems. A broken indicator doesn't only show wrong data — it can slow down MT4.
The MT4 risk controls you're probably not using
There are a few native risk management tools that most traders don't bother with. First worth mentioning is the maximum deviation setting in the trade execution window. This defines how much slippage is acceptable on market orders. Without this configured and you're accepting whatever price comes through.
Stop losses are obvious, but the trailing stop function are overlooked. Click on an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and set the pip amount. It follows when price moves your way. It won't suit take a look every approach, but on trending pairs it takes away the urge to stare at the screen.
These settings take a minute to configure and the difference in discipline is noticeable over time.
EAs on MT4: what to realistically expect
Expert Advisors on MT4 sounds appealing: define your rules and let the machine execute. In reality, a huge percentage of them underperform over any decent time period. The ones marketed using incredible historical results tend to be over-optimised — they worked on the specific data they were tested on and fall apart the moment the market does something different.
None of this means all EAs are worthless. Certain traders build custom EAs for specific, narrow tasks: entering at a specific time, automating position size calculations, or exiting positions at predetermined levels. That kind of automation work because they execute defined operations that don't require judgment.
When looking at Expert Advisors, run them on a demo account for no less than a few months. Running it forward in real time is more informative than backtesting alone.
MT4 beyond the desktop
The platform was designed for Windows. Running it on Mac has always been compromises. Previously was running it through Wine, which mostly worked but came with visual bugs and occasional crashes. A few brokers now offer macOS versions wrapped around compatibility layers, which is an improvement but still aren't true native apps.
The mobile apps, on both iOS and Android, are genuinely useful for monitoring open trades and tweaking stops. Serious charting work on a phone screen doesn't really work, but adjusting a stop loss while away from your desk is worth having.
Check whether your broker offers a proper macOS version or just Wine under the hood — the experience varies a lot between the two.