Definitive Guide to the MT4 Options Dialogue
Metaquotes’ MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform is by far the most popular trading platform among retail forex traders. In this quick and handy guide we’ll walk you through the various settings and options available in the MT4 options dialogue so you can get the most out of your MT4 platform.
Accessing the options dialogue
To bring up the MT4 options dialogue, simply click the Tools menu in your MT4 or terminal and then click Options (or Ctrl + O on your Windows keyboard):
Server tab
Once you’ve opened up the MT4 options dialogue you’ll find yourself on the Server tab:
This tab allows you to switch trading servers, change your master and investor passwords, enable proxy server functionality, choose whether or not to retain personal settings and data at startup, enable live quote export via a DDE server and enable or disable incoming news. Generally the only thing you’ll ever need to do on this screen is change your password; you tend to set the trading server at login, you only need to setup a proxy server if your ISP uses one, you will nearly always want the program to retain your personal settings and data (unless you are using a public computer), price export via DDE is a functionality reserved for advanced users, and brokers rarely enable the incoming news feature these days.
Charts tab
The second tab in MT4 options dialogue is the Charts tab. Here you will find a lot of useful settings regarding chart display and interaction:
On this tab you can show/hide trade levels, enable/disable OHLC data, enable/disable the ask line, show/hide period separators, enable/disable colour printing, enable/disable the save deleted charts feature (very handy if you accidentally close a chart) and increase or decrease the max bars per chart and history values (used in back testing when you need to load extensive historical data).
You may want to disable trade levels if you are posting a chart and you don’t want to also post your position. OHLC (Open, High, Low, Close) data is very handy, but you may want to disable this if your charts are to cluttered or the data isn’t relevant to your trading style.
Objects tab
This tab gives you a few options used to customize the way you work with chart objects like trend-lines and fibs:
You can set the platform to automatically display object properties dialogue when you create a new chart object, automatically select an object after creation, enable/disable object selection with a single mouse click and adjust object magnet sensitivity.
Automatically displaying the object properties dialogue on object creation is a very handy setting if you often draw trend-lines on lower time frame charts which you don’t want to appear on higher time frame charts.
Trade tab
This tab has a few options for streamlining order placement. You can change the default parameters used when creating orders, as well as enable/disable One Click Trading:
We’ve never personally had to change the default parameter settings on this tab, but One Click Trading is a very handy feature for the active trader.
Expert Advisors tab
Here you can access some essential options regarding the use of Expert Advisors:
There is a global setting which will allow/disallow automated trading, settings regarding when to automatically disable automated trading and security focussed settings related to allowing DLL imports and internet access. The vendor of your EA will advise you if you need to enable the final two settings. Be aware that these two settings can compromise the security of your terminal and PC, so only enable them if you have purchased your EA from a reliable vendor. The vendor will generally explain why their EA needs access to DLL’s or a web server.
Notifications tab
This tab allows you to enable or disable handy push notifications for your mobile device using your Metaquotes ID:
These notifications are delivered instantly, never lost and arrive directly in your Android/iOS mobile terminal. This is a very handy feature if you are often away from your terminal and require notification about a critical event with an EA or a market event which triggers a trade alert.
Email tab
The Email tab allows you to set where emails triggered by Expert Advisors or alerts will be sent from and who they will be sent to:
Simply enter the address of your mail (SMPT) server (you can ask your mail provider for this info if you are unsure), your email address and password, and complete the From and To fields as required. The simplest way of setting this up is just to enter your own email address in both the From and To fields. (Entering “Ýour Name”in these last two fields is optional).
FTP tab
Here you can enable automatic publishing of account data to an FTP server:
This is generally used to connect your MT4 account to a third party analysis service like Myfxbook. The service you are using will provide you with all the information required by this tab .
Events tab
This tab is pretty self-explanatory, it allows you to enable/disable MT4’s event sound effects, as well as customize which sound effects are played:
Community tab
The final tab in the MT4 options dialogue is the Community tab. Here you can register for a new MQL5 account or login to an existing one:
If you would like to take advantage of the MQL5 Expert Advisor market, MT4 automatic trading signals, advertise/bid for coding jobs or post on the MetaTrader forums, you will need to create an MQL5 account from here in your terminal, or at mql5.com.
Enjoy
We hope you have enjoyed this guide to the options available to you in the MetaTrader 4 platform. If you are going to be spending a lot of time trading, it’s nice to be able to customize the way your MT4 platform works, in order to make it work for you.
