MT4 in 2026: why it refuses to die
MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 licences a while back, pushing brokers toward MT5. Still, 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 run on MT4. Moving to MT5 means porting that entire library, and few people would rather keep trading than recoding.
I spent time testing both platforms side by side, and the gap is smaller than you'd expect. MT5 adds a few extras like more timeframes and a built-in economic calendar, but chart functionality is about the same. For most retail strategies, MT4 still holds its own.
Setting up MT4 without the usual headaches
Installation takes a few minutes. What actually causes problems is configuration. Out of the box, MT4 loads with four charts squeezed onto one window. Close all of them and start fresh with the markets you actually trade.
Save yourself repeating the same setup by using templates. Configure 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 adds up.
A quick tweak that helps: go to Tools > Options > Charts and check "Show ask line." By default MT4 displays the bid price on the chart, which can make buy entries seem misaligned until you realise the ask price is hidden.
MT4 strategy tester: honest expectations
MT4's built-in strategy tester lets you run Expert Advisors against historical data. But here's the thing: the reliability of those results comes down to your tick data. Standard history data is not real tick data, meaning gaps between real data points are estimated mathematically. For anything that needs accuracy, download third-party tick data.
That quality percentage in the results tells you more than the profit figure. Anything below 90% indicates the results are probably misleading. People occasionally show off discover this backtests with 25% modelling quality and ask 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 default technical indicators. The average trader uses maybe a handful. But the platform's actual strength is in community-made indicators coded in MQL4. The MQL5 marketplace alone has over 2,000 options, spanning simple moving average variations to elaborate signal panels.
Installing them is straightforward: copy the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, reboot MT4, and it appears in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality control. Community indicators vary wildly. A few are genuinely useful. Others are abandoned projects and can freeze your terminal.
If you're downloading custom indicators, look at when it was last updated and if people in the forums have flagged problems. A broken indicator won't just give wrong signals — it can lag MT4.
The MT4 risk controls you're probably not using
There are some risk management tools that a lot of people skip over. The most useful is the maximum deviation setting in the order window. This controls how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. Leave it at zero and you'll get whatever price the broker gives you.
Everyone knows about stop losses, but trailing stops are worth exploring. Click on an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and define the pip amount. The stop moves with the trade goes your way. It won't suit every approach, but if you're riding trends it reduces the need to micromanage the trade.
None of this is complicated to set up and they remove a lot of the emotional decision-making.
Running Expert Advisors: practical expectations
EAs attract traders for obvious reasons: set rules, let the code trade, walk away. In practice, the majority of Expert Advisors underperform over any meaningful time period. Those marketed using perfect backtest curves tend to be fitted to past data — they worked on past prices and stop working when the market does something different.
None of this means all EAs are a waste of time. Certain traders develop personal EAs to handle well-defined entry rules: entering at a specific time, managing position sizing, or taking profit at fixed levels. These utility-type EAs work because they handle defined operations that don't require discretion.
Before running any EA with real money, run them on a demo account for at least a few months. Forward testing is more informative than backtesting alone.
Using MT4 outside Windows
MT4 was built for Windows. Mac users deal with compromises. Previously was running it through Wine, which did the job but introduced visual bugs and occasional crashes. Some brokers now offer native Mac apps built on Crossover or similar wrappers, which work more smoothly but still aren't true native apps.
MT4 mobile, on both iOS and Android, are surprisingly capable for keeping an eye on your account and making quick adjustments. Doing proper analysis on a mobile device doesn't really work, but adjusting a stop loss while away from your desk has saved plenty of traders.
Check whether your broker offers real Mac support or a compatibility layer — it makes a real difference day to day.