MT4 after twenty years: an honest take on the platform
Why traders still pick MT4 over newer platforms
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences some time ago, nudging brokers toward MT5. Yet most retail forex traders kept using MT4. The reason is not complicated: MT4 does one thing well. More than a decade's worth of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts were built for MT4. Moving to MT5 means porting that entire library, and most traders would rather keep trading than recoding.
I spent time testing both platforms side by side, and the differences are less dramatic than the marketing suggests. MT5 has a few extras including more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but chart functionality is nearly identical. Unless you need MT5-specific features, there's no compelling reason to switch.
Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches
The install process is quick. Where people waste time is the setup after install. Out of the box, MT4 loads with four charts crammed into the screen. Clear the lot and start fresh with the instruments you care about.
Save yourself repeating the same setup by using templates. Configure your usual indicators on one chart, then save it as a template. Then you can load it onto other charts instantly. Sounds trivial, but over months it adds up.
A quick tweak that helps: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." The default view is the bid price on the chart, which can make your entries look off until you realise the ask price is hidden.
How reliable is MT4 backtesting?
The strategy tester in MT4 gives you the ability to run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the reliability of those results hinges on your tick data. The default history data from MetaQuotes is modelled, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated with made-up prices. For anything that needs accuracy, you need third-party tick data.
The "modelling quality" percentage tells website you more than the bottom-line PnL. Anything below 90% indicates the results aren't trustworthy. People occasionally show off backtests with 25% modelling quality and can't figure out why the EA fails in real conditions.
Backtesting is where MT4 earns its reputation, but only if you feed it decent data.
Building your own MT4 indicators
MT4 ships with 30 standard technical indicators. Most traders never touch them all. That said, the real depth lives in community-made indicators built with MQL4. There are over 2,000 options, ranging from basic modifications to full trading dashboards.
Installing them is straightforward: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality control. Publicly shared indicators are hit-and-miss. A few are solid tools. Others haven't been updated since 2015 and may crash your terminal.
When adding third-party indicators, look at how recently it was maintained and if people in the forums mention bugs. A poorly written indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can slow down MT4.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
There are several built-in risk management tools that the majority of users skip over. The most useful is maximum deviation in the order window. It sets the amount of slippage is acceptable on market orders. Without this configured and you'll get whatever price the broker gives you.
Stop losses are obvious, but MT4's trailing stop feature are underused. Click on an open trade, choose Trailing Stop, and set your preferred distance. The stop follows with price moves in your favour. It won't suit every approach, but if you're riding trends it removes the need to micromanage the trade.
None of this is complicated to set up and they take some of the guesswork out of trade management.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
Expert Advisors on MT4 have obvious appeal: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors underperform over any extended time period. The ones advertised with perfect backtest curves are usually curve-fitted — they performed well on the specific data they were tested on and stop working once market conditions change.
None of this means all EAs are useless. Certain traders build personal EAs to handle specific, narrow tasks: time-based entries, managing position sizing, or taking profit at set levels. These smaller, focused scripts work because they execute mechanical tasks without needing discretion.
If you're evaluating EAs, run them on a demo account for at least a few months. Running it forward in real time is more informative than backtesting alone.
MT4 on Mac and mobile: what actually works
The platform was designed for Windows. Running it on Mac deal with a workaround. The old method was emulation, which was functional but introduced display glitches and occasional crashes. Some brokers now offer Mac-specific builds built on Wine under the hood, which is an improvement but remain wrappers at the end of the day.
On mobile, on both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for monitoring positions and tweaking stops. Doing proper analysis on a mobile device is pushing it, but closing a trade on the go is genuinely handy.
It's worth confirming if your broker provides real Mac support or a compatibility layer — the experience varies a lot between the two.