How to install an indicator or advisor in MT4 and MT5?

How to set the indicator in MT4 and MT5? How to install advisor in MT4 and MT5? You will find answers to these and other questions about working with indicators and advisers in this article.

Hello friends! Many newcomers to Forex do not know how to install an indicator or advisor in the trading terminal MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 . In fact, this is nothing complicated, and is done in just one minute. So that you will not have more similar questions, we will look at the installation of indicators and advisers in MT4 and MT5 in detail, and also show how to configure them.

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Installing Indicators

Forex Indicators are technical analysis tools that are used to predict prices on the foreign exchange market. They are mathematical calculations of volume and price indicators, which significantly saves time for analysis. Based on the indications of the indicators, you can make decisions about entering and exiting deals, determine the direction and strength of the trend, and much more. There are already about 30 standard indicators in the trading terminal. To select the indicator you are interested in, you need to go to the Insert - Indicators menu.

All indicators are divided into groups: trend (Moving Average, Bollinger Bands, Parabolic SAR), oscillators (MACD, RSI, Stochastic Oscillator), volumes (Volumes) and Bill Williams indicators (Alligator, Fractals, etc.). But in many strategies, in addition to standard indicators, custom technical indicators are used. Consider the installation of indicators in MT4 on the example of the popular strategy FxMax5.

How to set the indicator in MT4?

1. You must have MetaTrader 4 trading terminal installed.

2. Download strategy archive with indicators and template and unpack it. Indicators should be located in the Indicators folder, which in turn lies in the MQL4 folder. If you have downloaded the archive, and there are indicators without folders in it, then you need to create the appropriate folders and paste the indicators there, or copy them separately into MT4. The templates folder, which contains the strategy template, should be located separately from the MQL4 folder. This is what the FxMax5 strategy files look like, ready to install:

The indicators themselves are located in the MQL4 subfolder - Indicators:

3. In the menu of the MT4 trading terminal, select File - Open data catalog.

A window opens in which we need to copy our folders with indicators and a template. If the folder has files with the same name, then replace them with the last ones.

If you downloaded the archive with indicators without folders, you can copy them separately and paste them into MQL4 - Indicators:

Also in the archive with the strategy, in addition to indicators, there may be folders Experts, Libraries, Include, Presets, Scripts and others. All of them are in the MQL4 folder. They do not need to be scattered separately in the respective folders; it is enough to copy the MQL4 folder and paste it into the Catalog window of the trading terminal data. But if the archive does not contain the MQL4 folder, then you need to either create it or copy the files separately. This is what the MQL4 folder in the Data Catalog Window looks like:

4. Restart the MetaTrader 4 trading terminal.

5. Go to Tools - Settings. In the window that opens, go to the Expert Advisors tab and check the checkboxes, as in the screenshot below:

6. Now you can go to the Insert menu - Indicators - Custom and set the indicators on your chart.

But if you already have a ready-made strategy template, as in our example, it is better to install this template on the chart, as it will immediately install all the necessary indicators and adjust the appearance of the chart. To do this, open the context menu by right-clicking on the chart, select Template in the menu and find your template.

7. If you did everything correctly, you will get the following result:

8. In the context menu, you can also click on the List of Indicators, and in a separate window get all the indicators installed on the chart. Double-clicking on one of them will open the indicator settings window in which you can change its parameters. But this should be done only if you understand this, otherwise it may lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of the trading strategy.

After the indicators have been installed on your terminal, you can start trading.

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How to set the indicator in MT5?

Installing indicators in MT5 is almost the same as installing indicators in MT4. All stages of the installation of indicators in MT5 fully coincide with those that we considered above. The only exception is that instead of the MQL4 folder, the MQL5 folder is used. Therefore, we will not dwell on this.

However, in the MetaTrader 5 trading terminal there is another feature that is not found in MetaTrader 4. Indicators can be bought or downloaded for free in the MT5 Trading Terminal Market. To do this, open the Market tab at the bottom of the terminal and go to the Indicators tab, where free and paid indicators will be available, sorted by groups.

To install the indicator in MT5, you must select it in the Market and download it.

However, you do not need to unpack the downloaded indicator and manually insert it into MT5, it will be installed automatically.

Please note that indicators and expert advisors created for the MetaTrader 4 trading terminal are not suitable for MetaTrader 5. Basically, all strategies are sharpened for MT4, so we recommend that you use this terminal.

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Advisor Installation

The Forex Advisor (trading expert or robot) is an automated trading system that analyzes a chart, and also opens and closes trades based on an algorithm embedded in it. The convenience of the adviser is that he does everything himself, without your participation. He can trade around the clock and does not experience any emotions during trading, which very often lead to losses for novice traders. All you need to do is to install it in the trading terminal and set the optimal parameters in the settings.

How to install advisor in MT4?

1. The advisor usually has the extension .mql or .ex4, but sometimes it has the file with the extension .exe. This gives the trader the automatic distribution of files into the necessary folders. However, we can do it ourselves. To do this, go to the File menu and select Open data catalog, as well as when installing indicators. Only in this case we need the Experts folder, which is located in the MQL4 folder.

2. In addition to the adviser in the archive can also be libraries with the extension .dll, which should be thrown in the Libraries folder, advisor settings templates with the .set extension - in the Presets folder, and the indicators you already know - in the Indicators folder. All these folders are located in the main folder of the Data Catalog - MQL4.

3. Restart the MetaTrader 4 trading terminal.

4. Go to the Tools - Settings menu and in the Expert Advisors tab we tick the checkboxes to enable automated trading and DLL imports.

In addition, in the toolbar of the MT4 trading terminal there is the Autotrade button, with which you can start and suspend the work of the advisor.

5. In the Navigator window, we find our adviser and drag it to the chart.

This opens the advisor settings window, which you can manually change if necessary, or load ready-made sets of settings if they go along with the advisor.

6. If you did everything correctly, then in the upper right corner of the terminal there will be a smiley with the name of the adviser.

How to install advisor in MT5?

Installing an Expert Advisor in MT5 is almost the same as installing an Expert Advisor in MT4. The only difference is that all files are stored in the MQL5 folder. And just like with indicators, advisers in MT5 can be bought or downloaded for free in the Market right in the trading terminal itself.

Now you know how to install an advisor in MT4 and MT5. As you can see, this is nothing complicated. Next, we will answer the most frequent questions that arise for novice traders when they first meet with advisors.

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Answers to common questions about working with advisors

  • Why does the adviser not open trades within a few hours after its installation? Advisors act strictly in accordance with the trading algorithm specified in them. There are different types of advisers - some trade according to the trend, others are looking for turning points, and still others use Martingale in their trading. In the latter case, advisors begin trading immediately after its installation, but such advisors are the most risky. Under normal conditions, the adviser may not open trades for several days, and this is quite normal;
  • Can you change the algorithm of the adviser? If you have basic programming skills and the source file of the advisor with the resolution of .mql, then you can make the necessary changes to it through the built-in MT4 program MetaEditor. If you have an adviser with the .ex4 resolution, then you cannot make changes to it, this is a copy-protected file. In this case, you can only change the parameters of the adviser;
  • Can I trade several advisors in one trading terminal? You can, you only need to specify a different MagicNumber in the settings of advisors;
  • Can I trade manually in the terminal where the advisor is installed? It is possible, the adviser trades according to his algorithm and does not touch your open orders. Exceptions are only auxiliary advisers, designed to monitor your open positions;
  • What if an adviser trades in a minus? Advisor is not a printing money machine, it can also trade with losses. The main thing is that by the end of the month or quarter you are in a plus, and your deposit is enough to withstand the drawdown. If the adviser trades steadily in a minus, then it should be disabled and tested on a demo account or strategy tester;
  • Is it possible to manually close the deal opened by the advisor? It is possible, but it is undesirable to interfere with the trading advisor, as it acts in accordance with the algorithm. In addition, after manually closing the transaction, he can open it again;
  • Will the adviser work if the terminal is closed? No, electricity and the Internet are necessary for the smooth operation of the adviser. If you do not have the opportunity to keep the trading terminal open at all times, or you have interruptions to the Internet, then we recommend that you connect a VPS server for a small fee.

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Conclusions

Thus, the installation of indicators and advisers in MT4 and MT5 is very simple and takes place in just one minute. Thanks to this, you can significantly expand the list of trading strategies that use unique indicators that are not present by default in the trading terminal. It is enough to download and install the indicator in MT4 or MT5, restart the terminal and start trading immediately. But is it worth buying paid indicators and advisors, this is another question that we will consider in future articles.

Read also the article "The best Forex indicators for MT4" .