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 kept using MT4. The reason is not complicated: MT4 works, and people trust what works. More than a decade's worth of custom indicators, Expert Advisors, and community scripts run on MT4. Moving to MT5 means rewriting that entire library, and few people would rather keep trading than recoding.
I spent time testing MT4 and MT5 side by side, and the gap is marginal for most strategies. MT5 has a few extras such as more timeframes and a website built-in economic calendar, but the charting is very similar. For most retail strategies, there's no compelling reason to switch.
MT4 setup: what the manual doesn't tell you
Downloading and installing MT4 is the easy part. The part that trips people up is the setup after install. On first launch, MT4 shows four charts squeezed onto the screen. Shut them all and open just the instruments you follow.
Save yourself repeating the same setup by using templates. Configure your usual indicators on one chart, then save it as a template. From there you can load it onto other charts in two clicks. Small thing, but over weeks it saves hours.
A quick tweak that helps: open Tools > Options > Charts and enable "Show ask line." By default MT4 displays the bid price on the chart, which makes entries appear wrong until you realise the ask price is hidden.
Backtesting on MT4: what the results actually mean
MT4 comes with a backtester that lets you run Expert Advisors against historical data. That said: the accuracy of those results depends entirely on your tick data. Standard history data from MetaQuotes is not real tick data, meaning the tester fills gaps with made-up prices. If you're testing something beyond a rough sanity check, download third-party tick data.
The "modelling quality" percentage matters more than the profit figure. Anything below 90% means the results are probably misleading. People occasionally post backtest results with 25% modelling quality and wonder 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 comes with 30 default technical indicators. The average trader uses maybe a handful. That said, where MT4 gets interesting is in custom indicators coded in MQL4. There are over 2,000 options, ranging from tweaked versions of standard tools to elaborate signal panels.
Installing them is straightforward: drop the .ex4 or .mq4 file into the MQL4/Indicators folder, refresh MT4, and the indicator shows up in the Navigator panel. One thing to watch is quality. Free indicators range from excellent to broken. A few are well coded and maintained. Many are abandoned projects and can freeze your terminal.
Before installing anything, check when it was last updated and if users have flagged problems. Bad code won't just give wrong signals — it can slow down MT4.
Risk management settings most MT4 traders ignore
You'll find some risk management features that most traders skip over. First worth mentioning is the maximum deviation setting in the order window. This defines how much slippage you'll accept on market orders. If you don't set it and the broker can fill you at whatever price the broker gives you.
Stop losses are obvious, but the trailing stop function are overlooked. Right-click an open trade, pick Trailing Stop, and define the pip amount. It adjusts with price moves your way. It won't suit every approach, but on trending pairs it takes away the need to stare at the screen.
You can configure all of this in under five minutes 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 have obvious appeal: define your rules and let the machine execute. In practice, a huge percentage of them underperform over any extended time period. Those advertised with perfect backtest curves tend to be over-optimised — they performed well on historical data and stop working once the market does something different.
That doesn't mean all EAs are a waste of time. Some traders build their own EAs for well-defined entry rules: opening trades at session opens, automating position size calculations, or exiting positions at fixed levels. These utility-type EAs tend to work because they execute mechanical tasks without needing judgment.
If you're evaluating EAs, test on demo first for no less than several weeks in different conditions. Running it forward in real time tells you more than any backtest.
Using MT4 outside Windows
The platform was designed for Windows. Running it on Mac face a workaround. The traditional approach was Wine or PlayOnMac, which was functional but came with visual bugs and stability problems. Certain brokers now offer macOS versions built on Crossover or similar wrappers, which work more smoothly but remain wrappers at the end of the day.
On mobile, available for both Apple and Android devices, are genuinely useful for monitoring positions and managing trades on the move. Serious charting work on a mobile device isn't realistic, but closing a trade from your phone is genuinely handy.
Check whether your broker offers a native Mac build or just a wrapper — it makes a real difference day to day.