MT4 after twenty years: an honest take on the platform
MT4 in 2026: why it refuses to die
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, steering brokers toward MT5. Yet most retail forex traders stayed put. The reason is simple: MT4 has twenty years of muscle memory behind it. A huge library of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Migrating to MT5 means porting that entire library, and few people 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 like more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the core charting feels nearly identical. For most retail strategies, 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 loads with four charts crammed into a single workspace. Close all of them and start fresh with the markets you actually trade.
Chart templates save time. Set up your preferred indicators once, then save it as a template. After that you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it adds up.
Something most people miss: open Tools > Options > Charts and check "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price on the chart, which makes buy entries seem misaligned until you realise the ask price is hidden.
Backtesting on MT4: what the results actually mean
MT4's built-in strategy tester allows you to run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the accuracy of those results depends entirely on your tick data. Built-in history data from MetaQuotes is modelled, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated mathematically. For anything that needs accuracy, grab proper historical data.
Modelling quality tells you more than the bottom-line PnL. If it's under 90% suggests the results shouldn't be taken seriously. I've seen people share screenshots with 25% modelling quality and wonder why live trading looks different.
This is one area where MT4 genuinely outperforms most web-based platforms, but the output is only useful with quality tick data.
MT4 indicators beyond the defaults
MT4 ships with 30 built-in technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. That said, the platform's actual strength lives in user-built indicators built with MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has thousands available, covering everything from basic modifications to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: place the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, reboot MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality control. Community indicators vary wildly. Some are genuinely useful. Some stopped working years ago and may crash your terminal.
When adding third-party indicators, look at how recently it was maintained and whether people in the forums mention bugs. A broken indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can lag the whole terminal.
Managing risk properly inside MT4
You'll find a few native risk management tools that a lot of people don't bother with. The most useful is maximum deviation in the order window. It sets how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Leave it at zero and you're accepting whatever price comes through.
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 the trade goes into profit. Not perfect for every strategy, but for trend-following it removes the temptation to stare at the screen.
These settings take a minute to configure and the difference in discipline is noticeable over time.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
Expert Advisors on MT4 sounds appealing: define your rules and let the machine execute. In reality, the majority of Expert Advisors underperform over any decent time period. Those marketed using perfect backtest curves are usually fitted to past data — they look great on the specific data they were tested on and break down once market conditions change.
This isn't to say all EAs are worthless. Certain traders develop personal EAs site for one particular setup: entering at a specific time, calculating lot sizes, or closing trades at predetermined levels. These smaller, focused scripts are more reliable because they handle defined operations where you don't need discretion.
When looking at Expert Advisors, test on demo first for a minimum of two to three months. Live demo testing tells you more than any backtest.
Using MT4 outside Windows
The platform was designed for Windows. Mac users deal with compromises. The old method was emulation, which did the job but came with rendering issues and the odd crash. A few brokers now offer Mac-specific builds built on Wine under the hood, which is an improvement but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.
The mobile apps, on both Apple and Android devices, work well for watching positions and tweaking stops. Full analysis on a phone screen doesn't really work, but closing a trade from your phone is genuinely handy.
Look into whether your broker has a native Mac build or just a wrapper — the experience varies a lot between the two.