MT4 in 2026: why it refuses to die
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences years ago, nudging brokers toward MT5. Yet most retail forex traders kept using MT4. The reason is simple: MT4 does one thing well. Thousands of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Migrating to MT5 means rebuilding that entire library, and few people don't see the point.
I've tested both platforms side by side, and the differences are marginal for most strategies. MT5 has a few extras such as more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the charting feels about the same. If you're weighing up the two, MT4 still holds its own.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. The part that trips people up is getting everything configured correctly. On first launch, MT4 opens with four charts tiled across one window. Shut them all and open just the instruments you care about.
Templates are worth setting up early. Build your preferred indicators once, then right-click and save as template. Then you can load it onto other charts without redoing the work. Small thing, but over time it makes a difference.
One setting worth changing: go to Tools > Options > Charts and tick "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price by default, which makes buy entries seem misaligned by the spread amount.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
MT4 comes with a backtester that allows you to run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the quality of those results hinges on your tick data. The default history data from MetaQuotes is interpolated, meaning the tester fills gaps using algorithms. If you're testing something beyond a rough sanity check, download real tick data from a provider like Dukascopy.
The "modelling quality" percentage is more important than the bottom-line PnL. Anything below 90% suggests the results shouldn't be taken seriously. People occasionally post backtest results with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out why live trading looks different.
The strategy tester is one of MT4's stronger features, but only if you feed it decent data.
MT4 indicators beyond the defaults
MT4 ships with 30 standard technical indicators. Few people use more than five or six. That said, where MT4 gets interesting is in community-made indicators written in MQL4. You can find thousands available, ranging from tweaked versions of standard tools to complex multi-timeframe dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: place the .ex4 or .mq4 file into your MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh more MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality. Publicly shared indicators are hit-and-miss. Some are genuinely useful. Others stopped working years ago and may crash your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, check how recently it was maintained and whether other traders report issues. Bad code doesn't only show wrong data — it can lag your entire platform.
Managing risk properly inside MT4
There are a few native risk management options that the majority of users never configure. The most useful is maximum deviation in the order window. It sets how much slippage you're willing to tolerate on market orders. Without this configured and the broker can fill you at whatever price the broker gives you.
Stop losses are obvious, but the trailing stop function is underused. Click on an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and define a distance. It adjusts automatically as the trade goes into profit. Not perfect for every strategy, but on trending pairs it takes away the urge to stare at the screen.
None of this is complicated to set up and they remove a lot of the emotional decision-making.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
Automated trading through Expert Advisors have obvious appeal: program your strategy and stop staring at charts. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors underperform over any decent time period. Those marketed using incredible historical results are often fitted to past data — they performed well on historical data and stop working the moment the market does something different.
That doesn't mean all EAs are a waste of time. Certain traders develop custom EAs to handle one particular setup: time-based entries, calculating lot sizes, or exiting positions at set levels. That kind of automation tend to work because they do repetitive actions that don't require judgment.
If you're evaluating EAs, test on demo first for at least a few months. Live demo testing tells you more than any backtest.
MT4 beyond the desktop
MT4 was built for Windows. Running it on Mac has always been friction. The old method was emulation, which was functional but introduced rendering issues and occasional crashes. Some brokers now offer macOS versions using compatibility layers, which are better but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.
The mobile apps, available for both iOS and Android, are genuinely useful for monitoring positions and making quick adjustments. Serious charting work on a phone screen doesn't really work, but closing a trade from your phone is genuinely handy.
Look into whether your broker has real Mac support or a compatibility layer — it makes a real difference day to day.