MetaTrader 4 in 2026: How to Download It, and Whether It's Still Worth Learning

By Marcel Hambálek · Senior Trader, For Traders

MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is a free retail trading terminal built by MetaQuotes Software Corp. in 2005 for forex, gold and CFD trading, and it is still working, supported with maintenance builds and safe to download in October 2026. There are exactly two safe sources: metatrader4.com or your broker's / prop firm's own client area — anyone charging you for MT4 is selling you something MetaQuotes gives away.

Key takeaways

• MT4 is free forever — the terminal, the demo accounts, the indicators and the Strategy Tester all cost nothing, so any 'paid MT4 licence' offer is a scam.
• Download only from metatrader4.com or your broker/prop firm client area; before running mt4setup.exe, confirm Windows SmartScreen shows the publisher as MetaQuotes Software Corp.
• The real-account and demo installers are identical — what changes is the trade server name and login credentials you enter under File → Login to Trade Account.
• There is no native Mac build: MT4 runs on macOS through a Wine wrapper, Parallels or CrossOver, and on Apple Silicon you pay a translation tax in CPU and battery.
• The iOS and Android apps are for managing trades, not building them — no Expert Advisors, no custom indicators, no Strategy Tester, and Close By is missing on iOS.
• MetaQuotes froze new MT4 licence sales in 2022 and most 2026 prop evaluations run on MT5, cTrader, DXtrade, Match-Trader or TradeLocker — check your challenge terminal before you buy.

Watch: related video

What Is MetaTrader 4?

MetaTrader 4 is a free trading terminal — desktop, mobile and browser — that lets you chart the market and send buy/sell orders to a broker's or prop firm's trade server. It doesn't hold your money, it doesn't clear your trades, and it isn't a broker itself. Think of it as the cockpit: the broker or prop firm is the plane.

Who makes MT4 and when it launched

MT4 was built by MetaQuotes Software Corp., a Cyprus-registered software company, and released in 2005. It was originally aimed at forex brokers who needed a cheap, stable way to give retail clients chart access and order execution without building their own platform from scratch. Twenty-one years later it's still running, still getting maintenance builds, and still the default terminal handed out by most retail brokers and prop firms when you open a trading challenge.

What you can trade on it

MT4 was designed around spot forex, and that's still its backbone — EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY and every other major, minor and exotic pair your broker lists. Beyond forex, most providers also route:

• Metals — XAUUSD (gold) is typically the single most-traded symbol in a For Traders evaluation, alongside XAGUSD (silver)
• Index CFDs — US30, NSDQ100 and similar, priced as contracts for difference, not the underlying futures contract
• Energy CFDs — WTI and Brent crude
• Crypto CFDs — BTC, ETH and others where the provider offers them

What MT4 does not trade natively is listed stocks or exchange futures contracts — if your broker offers those, it's usually bolted on through a separate bridge, or you're actually looking at MT5 or a different platform entirely. If you're comparing the two, it's worth reading up on MT4 vs MT5 before you commit a challenge account to one or the other.

Why it took over retail forex

MT4 won the retail forex market for reasons that still hold up: it runs on almost anything, including a decade-old laptop, which mattered a lot more in 2008 than it does today but still keeps VPS costs low for algo traders. It shipped with over 30 built-in indicators out of the box — MACD, RSI, Bollinger Bands, the works — so you didn't need third-party tools to start reading price. And it introduced MQL4, a C-like scripting language that let anyone build custom indicators and Expert Advisors (automated strategies that execute without you watching the screen). That combination — free, light, scriptable — got nearly every retail broker on earth to standardise on it for close to fifteen years, which is why "MT4 forex trading platform" and "retail forex" became almost interchangeable terms, and why MQL4 code libraries built in 2010 still run on challenge accounts today.

Is MetaTrader 4 Still Working in 2026 — and Is It Free?

MT4 is not discontinued, and it's still free. MetaQuotes stopped issuing new MT4 server licences to brokers back in 2022 and put its development muscle behind MetaTrader 5, but the terminal itself keeps receiving maintenance builds, still connects to live and demo servers, and is still handed out by hundreds of brokers and a number of prop firms heading into 2026. If someone's telling you MT4 is dead, they're selling you something else — usually MT5.

Is MT4 discontinued? The 2022 licence freeze explained

Here's what actually happened, because the rumor and the reality diverge. In 2022, MetaQuotes stopped selling new MT4 licences to brokers that didn't already have one. That's a commercial decision about new broker onboarding — it's not a kill switch on the software. Brokers who already held an MT4 licence kept it, kept serving MT4 accounts, and kept getting MT4 maintenance builds pushed through the terminal's auto-update mechanism, the same way it's always worked. You'll still see build numbers climb in your terminal's "Help → About" window in 2026 — that's MetaQuotes patching bugs and compatibility issues, not reviving a corpse. The honest framing: MT4 is in long-term maintenance mode, not active feature development. No new order types, no new chart tools are coming. But "no longer being developed forward" and "discontinued" are two different claims, and conflating them is how clickbait articles get your attention.

Is MT4 free? Yes — and what the scams look like

Is MT4 free? Yes, unconditionally. Is MetaTrader 4 free for demo accounts, built-in indicators, the Strategy Tester, and the full desktop terminal? Also yes — MetaQuotes has never charged retail traders a cent for any of it. The only money that legitimately changes hands is what you pay your broker through spreads, commissions, and overnight swaps on live positions. That's the entire cost structure.

So when you see these two offers, run:

• "MT4 licence keys" for sale — MetaQuotes licenses the server-side software to brokers, not individual terminal access to traders. Nobody has a legitimate "key" to sell you.
• Cracked builds with "unlocked" Expert Advisors — these are almost always malware vectors bundled with a modified .exe. You're not getting a free EA; you're installing a keylogger next to your trading account credentials.

Is there a MetaTrader 6?

No. As of October 2026, MetaQuotes has made no announcement, no beta, no roadmap reference to a MetaTrader 6. Anyone marketing "early access to MT6" is running a scam or confusing you with an unrelated product. MT5 remains the newest platform in the MetaQuotes lineup, and has for well over a decade.

Last verified: October 2026.

Where to Download MetaTrader 4 Safely (Only Two Sources)

There are exactly two safe places to get an MT4 download: metatrader4.com, or the client area of the broker or prop firm whose server you're going to trade on. Everything else — download aggregators, "fast mirror" sites, forum links promising a cracked EA bundle — is either bloatware, malware, or both.

Source 1: metatrader4.com

metatrader4.com is MetaQuotes' own distribution page, and it gives you the generic MT4 download for pc: a universal mt4.exe installer that isn't tied to any broker. Good for testing the platform, demoing strategies, or if you haven't picked a server yet. The catch: once installed, you'll need to manually add your broker's server address under "File > Login to Trade Account" before you can log in live.

Source 2: your broker or prop firm client area

Your broker or prop firm's client area gives you a pre-configured build — same MT4 engine, but the server list arrives already pointed at their trade servers. You skip the manual server-search step entirely, which matters more than it sounds: typing a server name wrong is the single most common reason traders think their "MT4 download is broken" when really it's just not connected to anything yet.

Device, source and file type table

Last verified: October 2026.

What to avoid: mirrors, cracked builds and sideloaded APKs

Three traps show up every time "mt4 download" trends on search:

• Download mirrors — third-party aggregator sites that repackage the installer, often bundling adware or a modified mt4.exe that phones home with your keystrokes.
• "Unlocked" or cracked builds — forum posts claiming to unlock paid indicators or EAs on a free platform. MT4 itself has never required a licence key; anyone attaching one to the base terminal is attaching something else too.
• Sideloaded APKs — Android files downloaded outside Google Play and installed manually. Skip them. The Play Store build is signed and verified; a forum-linked APK isn't.

One rule covers all three: if a site asks for payment or a licence key for MT4, close the tab. MetaQuotes gives the terminal away free, and so does every legitimate broker or prop firm — including the client area you'll use to log into your trading account credentials.

How to Install MetaTrader 4 on Windows (5 Steps)

Download mt4setup.exe from metatrader4.com or your broker's client area, verify the publisher signature, run the installer, pick a dedicated folder, and launch — the whole metatrader 4 for windows install takes under three minutes on a modern PC. MT4 is fully compatible with Windows 11, carries a footprint of roughly 50-100 MB once installed, and runs comfortably on a $5/month VPS if you're planning to leave an EA or a prop challenge running overnight.

Step-by-step: from mt4setup.exe to first launch

1. Download the installer. Grab mt4 exe from metatrader4.com or your broker's/prop firm's client area — never a third-party mirror. File size should land around 2-3 MB for the web installer (it pulls the rest post-install).
2. Check the publisher before you click Run. Right-click the downloaded file, choose Properties, then Digital Signatures — this is your first checkpoint before Windows even shows its own warning.
3. Run the installer and accept the licence agreement. This is where you choose your install path — don't accept the default blindly if you're running multiple accounts (more on that below).
4. Let it finish and connect. Setup copies terminal files, templates and default indicators, then opens the login window automatically.
5. Log in to your demo or live/challenge account using the credentials from your broker or prop firm's client area, then set your chart defaults before you do anything else.

The SmartScreen publisher check: MetaQuotes Software Corp.

Windows will almost certainly throw up a SmartScreen prompt — treat this as non-skippable, not an annoyance. Click "More info" and read the Publisher line carefully. It must say MetaQuotes Software Corp. exactly. If it reads "Unknown publisher," shows a different company name, or the "More info" link is missing entirely, delete the file immediately and re-download from a verified source. This Windows SmartScreen publisher signature check is the single most effective filter against the cloned installers floating around search results and shady download aggregators.

Install each account into its own folder

If you trade more than one account — say a demo, a live account, and a prop firm challenge — don't let them share a folder. Install each one separately, e.g. C:\MT4\FT-Challenge, C:\MT4\Live-Broker, C:\MT4\Demo. Each install carries its own templates, saved profiles, EAs, and logs, so one terminal's settings never silently overwrite another's. This matters most during a Trading Challenge, where a mixed-up template or an EA running on the wrong account can blow a daily loss limit you didn't even know was active. A few extra minutes of folder naming now saves you a support ticket — or a busted evaluation — later.

How to Log Into a Real or Demo Account in MT4

You log in through File → Login to Trade Account, and the single most common reason it fails is a server name that's off by one character. Get the login number, password, and exact server string right, and MT4 connects in under five seconds — get the server wrong and you'll stare at "Invalid account" for longer than you'd like to admit.

File → Login to Trade Account, field by field

Open the terminal, click File in the top menu, then Login to Trade Account. Three fields appear:

• Login — a numeric account ID, usually 6-8 digits. Not your email, not your name.
• Password — MT4 issues two separate passwords: a trader password (full trading rights) and an investor password (read-only, for monitoring). If you can see your chart but can't place an order, you've almost certainly logged in with the investor password by mistake.
• Server — a dropdown, not a free-text field you should be typing from memory.

All three come from the same place: the welcome email sent when you open a live account or buy a For Traders Trading Challenge, or the client area dashboard under your account details. Never guess these — copy-paste them.

Getting the exact server name right

This is where first sessions go wrong. Every broker and prop firm runs multiple trade servers — one for live accounts, separate ones for demo, and often several numbered servers to balance load. For Traders-Live2 is a different physical server from For Traders-Live3, and MT4 won't guess which one holds your account. Pick the wrong one and you get "Invalid account" even though your login and password are correct — the terminal simply can't find your account ID on that server.

If your server isn't in the dropdown list, don't type it blindly. Use Find a broker in the same dialog and search the exact name from your credentials email, or add it manually character-for-character, suffix included.

Real account vs demo account: same installer, different server

This clears up most of the "metatrader 4 real account download" confusion: there is no separate real-account installer. The .exe or .dmg you downloaded from metatrader4.com or your prop firm's client area is identical whether you're trading a demo account or a funded, real-money-adjacent challenge account. The only things that change are the server you select and the credentials you enter. One terminal install can log into a demo account today and a live challenge account tomorrow — just not both at once in the same window.

Once connected, check the bottom-right corner of the terminal. A kbps figure ticking up means you're live and receiving price feed. If it reads "no connection" instead, recheck your server name first — that's the fix nine times out of ten.

MetaTrader 4 on Mac: What It Actually Costs You

MT4 does not run natively on macOS — full stop. Every "MetaTrader 4 download for Mac" you'll find is Windows software running through a compatibility layer, and that layer always costs you something: CPU cycles, battery, or your weekend setting it up. If you're on a Mac, you're choosing which flavor of workaround you can live with, not avoiding the workaround itself.

There is no native macOS build

MetaQuotes built MT4 for Windows in 2005 and never ported it to macOS. The "mt4 for mac" installer MetaQuotes itself distributes is actually a wrapper — Windows MT4 bundled with a translation layer so it launches when you double-click a .dmg. It looks native. It isn't. Every indicator call, every chart redraw, every Strategy Tester pass is still Windows code being translated in real time.

Wine wrapper vs Parallels vs CrossOver

You've got three realistic routes, and they trade off cost against stability:

Parallels is the heaviest on resources — you're running an entire Windows installation alongside macOS — but it's also the one least likely to drop your connection mid-session during a live challenge.

Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3) translation tax

Apple Silicon runs everything through Rosetta or a VM's own x86 translation, and that stack isn't free. Charts loaded with multiple indicators can stutter on scroll. Strategy Tester runs noticeably slower than on equivalent Windows hardware doing the same backtest — budget extra time if you're optimizing an EA. Battery drain is real too; MT4 under translation pulls more than a native app would for the same price feed.

The VPS alternative for 24/5 EAs

If you're running an Expert Advisor that needs to stay live 24/5, stop fighting your Mac. Rent a Windows VPS physically close to your broker's trade server, install MT4 there, and remote in from your Mac only to check in. You sidestep clipboard glitches, custom indicator folder issues, and the translation tax entirely — the EA runs on real Windows hardware, uninterrupted by your laptop sleeping or Wi-Fi dropping. For anyone trading a funded account where downtime costs you a missed trade, a VPS for EA hosting is the pragmatic fix, not a luxury.

The MetaTrader 4 App: iOS and Android (And What's Missing)

The MetaTrader 4 app, free on the Apple App Store and Google Play under the official MetaQuotes listing, is a trade-management tool — not a desktop replacement. You use it to check positions, move a stop, or close a trade from a lunch break, not to build an EA or run a backtest.

Installing from the App Store and Google Play

Search "MetaTrader 4" in either store — MetaQuotes is the publisher of record, so confirm that name before you tap install, since lookalike apps occasionally surface in search results. Open the app, choose "Login to an existing account," then enter the same login, password, and server name your broker or prop firm gave you for the desktop terminal. The server field is the one step traders fumble: don't type it from memory, use the in-app search and pick the exact match, because "Broker-Live" and "Broker-Live2" are different servers and a typo here just hangs the connection with no useful error message.

What the mobile app does well

• Full Market Watch with live quotes across your account's symbols
• 30 built-in indicators for on-the-go chart reading
• 24 analytical objects — trendlines, Fibonacci, channels — for marking up setups
• Market and pending order placement
• One-tap modification of stop loss and take profit on open positions
• Push notifications for price alerts and trade events, useful if you're managing a funded account and can't watch screens all day

The honest feature gaps: no EAs, no custom indicators, no Strategy Tester

Here's what the app can't do, and no amount of searching settings will find it: it won't run Expert Advisors, won't import custom indicators or templates you built on desktop, and has no Strategy Tester for backtesting. Chart objects are limited to that list of 24 — no custom scripts, no multi-timeframe analysis panels. If your edge depends on an automated EA or a hand-coded indicator, the phone is for monitoring that EA's work on a VPS, not for running it.

'Close By' not found on iOS — and the workaround

If you trade hedged positions — long and short on the same pair simultaneously — you'll hit this one fast: metatrader 4 for ios drops the "Close By" function that lets you net two opposing positions in a single tap. Searching "close by metatrader 4 not found ios" turns up the same frustration repeatedly, and it's not a bug, it's a platform limitation Apple's build has carried for years. Three workarounds: close each leg individually and accept the two separate fills, switch to metatrader 4 for android where Close By is present, or handle hedge management from the desktop terminal where the full order context is visible.

MetaTrader 4 Web: Trading From a Browser, No Install

Yes — MT4 runs straight from a browser through the MT4 WebTerminal, and it logs in with the exact same credentials as your desktop and mobile terminals. No installer, no admin rights, no download at all. If you're on a locked-down work laptop, a Chromebook, or someone else's machine at a trade show, this is how you check a position without begging IT for permissions.

How to reach the MT4 WebTerminal

Every broker and prop firm running MT4 exposes a web link, usually sitting right inside the client area next to the desktop and mobile download buttons. Click it, and you get a page asking for login, password, and server — the same three fields you'd punch into the desktop app. Type them in, hit connect, and your open trades, pending orders, and account balance load inside the tab. There's nothing to register separately and no second account to create; the WebTerminal is just another window into the same trading account.

What WebTrader can and can't do

The metatrader webtrader build covers the core job: place market and pending orders, set stop loss and take profit, view live charts, and monitor equity. What it drops is everything that makes MT4 a serious strategy platform:

• No Expert Advisors — your EA keeps running on whatever terminal it's attached to, not in the browser tab
• No custom indicators — you get the built-in set only, no .mq4 imports
• No Strategy Tester — backtesting isn't available in a browser session
• Fewer chart objects and timeframes than desktop, and a noticeably thinner indicator list

It's a monitoring and execution tool, not a trading workstation.

When browser access is the right call

Browser trading platform access makes sense for one job: managing risk on a position you already opened elsewhere, when you're away from your main setup. Checking a stop loss from a hotel business centre during NFP week, trimming a position before you board a flight, closing a trade from a client's PC — that's the use case.

What it's not built for is running a Trading Challenge day to day. Your MT4 session in a browser tab lives and dies with that tab — close it, let your laptop sleep, or lose wifi, and the connection drops along with any chart setup you had open. There's no background process keeping your EA alive or your trailing stop logic running the way there is on a VPS or a desktop terminal left open overnight. For challenge accounts where daily loss limits and max drawdown get measured in real time, you want a terminal you trust to stay connected, not one tied to browser tab stability. Keep the WebTerminal in your back pocket for emergencies — don't make it your primary terminal when simulated capital and a payout are on the line.

How to Use MetaTrader 4: From First Chart to First Trade

Open MT4, and the fastest way from blank screen to your first trade is: find the symbol, drag it onto a chart, hit F9, set your stops in price — not in a mental pip count. That's the whole MT4 tutorial in one sentence. Here's the detail.

Market Watch: symbols and the hidden instruments

The Market Watch panel on the left lists whatever symbols your broker or prop firm has switched on by default — and that list is almost always incomplete. Right-click anywhere inside it and choose Show All. That's the step most new MT4 users skip, and it's why they can't find XAUUSD, US100, or some of the index CFDs that are sitting in the terminal the whole time, just hidden from the default view. Once you see the full symbol tree, drag the one you want straight onto an open chart window — no menu digging required.

Charts, timeframes and templates

MT4 gives you nine timeframes, from M1 up to Monthly, switchable from the toolbar or with a single keypress. Build your layout once — indicators, colour scheme, chart type (candlestick, bar, or line) — then save it as a template via Charts → Template → Save Template. Every new chart you open after that can load the same template instantly, so you're not rebuilding your setup from scratch every session.

Placing a market order vs a pending order

F9 opens the order ticket on whatever chart has focus. From there you choose Market Execution to fill at the current price, or one of four pending order types: buy limit, sell limit, buy stop, and buy sell stop — the mechanics every MT4 tutorial on placing an order in MT4 needs to cover before touching indicators. Set your lot size, and critically, set your stop loss and take profit in price terms, not as a pip count you're holding in your head. A gold trade moving 400 points looks nothing like a EURUSD trade moving 400 points — price-based stops don't lie to you the way mental pip math does.

Attaching stop loss, take profit, and One Click Trading

You can also drag the SL and TP lines directly on the chart after the order's live — MT4 updates the ticket in real time as you move them. For faster execution, the One Click Trading panel lets you fire market orders from the chart without the F9 window at all. MT4 shows a risk warning the first time you enable it for good reason — one click with the wrong lot size open is a real way to blow through a daily loss limit before you've finished your coffee.

Indicators, the Navigator, and Expert Advisors

The Navigator window holds your indicators, scripts, and Expert Advisors. Drag any MT4 indicator onto a chart and a settings box opens before it plots. Attaching an Expert Advisor (EA) works the same way — drag it onto the chart, and you'll see a small smiley face appear in the top-right corner confirming it's attached and allowed to trade.

AutoTrading and the Strategy Tester

Nothing an EA does executes until you toggle the AutoTrading button in the main toolbar — green means live, red means the EA is just watching. Before you ever run one on a funded account, run it through the Strategy Tester: pick the symbol, period, a date range, and a modelling type. Here's the honest part — MT4's Strategy Tester is single-threaded, and backtesting on "Open prices only" skips the intra-bar price action entirely. It'll show you a gorgeous equity curve that has nothing to do with how that EA fills in live, volatile conditions. Treat fast backtests as a first filter, not proof of anything.

MetaTrader 4 Pros and Cons in 2026

Pros

• Completely free — terminal, demo accounts, built-in indicators and Strategy Tester cost nothing
• Deepest retail EA and custom indicator library of any platform, built over 20 years of MQL4
• Runs on almost anything: old laptops, cheap VPS, phones and browsers
• Available on Windows, macOS (via wrapper), iOS, Android and WebTerminal with one login
• Familiar to nearly every retail broker support desk, so help is easy to find

Cons / risks

• No new broker licences since 2022 — maintenance builds only, with development focus on MT5
• Nine timeframes and four pending order types versus MT5's 21 and six
• Single-threaded Strategy Tester makes serious backtesting slow and easy to misread
• No native macOS build; Apple Silicon users pay a translation tax in CPU and battery
• Mobile apps drop EAs, custom indicators and the Strategy Tester entirely (and Close By on iOS)
• Most 2026 prop evaluations have moved to MT5, cTrader, DXtrade, Match-Trader or TradeLocker

Frequently Asked Questions