Why traders still pick MT4 over newer platforms
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, pushing brokers toward MT5. But most retail forex traders haven't moved. The reason is straightforward: MT4 has twenty years of muscle memory behind it. More than a decade's worth of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts only work with MT4. Switching to MT5 means rebuilding that entire library, and few people would rather keep trading than recoding.
After testing MT4 and MT5 side by side, and the differences are less dramatic than the marketing suggests. MT5 adds a few extras including more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but the core charting feels nearly identical. Unless you need MT5-specific features, MT4 is more than enough.
Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches
The install process is quick. Where people waste time is the setup after install. On first launch, MT4 opens with four charts crammed into one window. Close all of them and open just the markets check this out you actually trade.
Templates are worth setting up early. Build your preferred indicators on one chart, then save it as a template. After that you can load it onto other charts instantly. Sounds trivial, but over weeks it makes a difference.
One setting worth changing: go to Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." MT4 only shows the bid price on the chart, which makes entries appear wrong until you realise the ask price is hidden.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
MT4 comes with a backtester that gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. Worth noting though: the accuracy of those results comes down to your tick data. The default history data from MetaQuotes is modelled, meaning the tester fills gaps with made-up prices. If you're testing something that needs accuracy, download proper historical data.
That quality percentage in the results matters more than the headline profit number. Below 90% indicates the results aren't trustworthy. I've seen people show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out why their live results don't match.
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 comes with 30 default technical indicators. The average trader uses maybe a handful. That said, the platform's actual strength is in user-built indicators built with MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has a massive library, ranging from simple moving average variations to full trading dashboards.
Adding a custom indicator is simple: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. The catch is quality control. Publicly shared indicators vary wildly. Some are genuinely useful. Many stopped working years ago and will crash your terminal.
When adding third-party indicators, look at the last update date and if other traders have flagged problems. Bad code won't just give wrong signals — it can lag the whole terminal.
The MT4 risk controls you're probably not using
There are several built-in risk management features that a lot of people don't bother with. First worth mentioning is maximum deviation in the trade execution window. It sets how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Without this configured and you're accepting whatever price the broker gives you.
Stop losses are obvious, but MT4's trailing stop feature is worth exploring. Click on an open trade, select Trailing Stop, and define your preferred distance. Your stop loss moves automatically as the trade goes your way. Doesn't work well in choppy markets, but for trend-following it reduces the temptation to micromanage the trade.
None of this is complicated to set up and they take some of the guesswork out of trade management.
Expert Advisors — before you trust a robot with your money
Expert Advisors on MT4 attract traders for obvious reasons: define your rules and let the machine execute. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors fail to deliver over any extended time period. EAs advertised with perfect backtest curves tend to be fitted to past data — they performed well on past prices and stop working the moment the market does something different.
This isn't to say all EAs are a waste of time. Certain traders build personal EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: time-based entries, managing position sizing, or exiting positions at fixed levels. These utility-type EAs tend to work because they do mechanical tasks that don't require judgment.
Before running any EA with real money, test on demo first for no less than two to three months. Forward testing is more informative than historical results ever will.
MT4 on Mac and mobile: what actually works
MT4 was built for Windows. Mac users has always been a workaround. Previously was Wine or PlayOnMac, which did the job but came with rendering issues and stability problems. Certain brokers now offer macOS versions using Wine under the hood, which are better but still aren't built from scratch for Mac.
On mobile, on both iPhone and Android, are genuinely useful for monitoring positions and tweaking stops. Doing proper analysis on a mobile device isn't realistic, 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.