MT4 has a great Alerts system built in that notifies traders when pricing of symbols reach selected levels. Those Alerts can be audible, an on-screen notification or sent by email. For the purposes of this white paper we are going to look at how email Alerts can be setup as we feel they can really help traders stay on top of things when running MT4 from a VPS or unattended machine.
In order to utilise the core MT4 email alert functionality you will need to use the SMTP credentials from an email account of your choice (this account will be used to send email). You will also need to specify which email account you would like to receive email to. Since we cannot possibly cover settings for all the email providers we will look at how to setup email alerts using a Gmail account since everyone either has a Gmail account or is eligible to open one.
To get started have your Gmail email and password ready then do as follows in MT4:
- Click the “Tools” drop-down from the main menu and then click “Options”
- Select the “Email” tab and enter the following settings:
Check “Enable”
SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com
SMTP login: <your email address>
SMTP Password: <your email password>
From: MT4 Alerts, (entering your email address to send from)
To: Recipient Name, (entering the email address to receive email)Example of email settings dialog in MT4
- Click OK button and now MT4 is able to send you email when either Alerts are configured to send email or when an Expert Advisor attempts to send email.
Now that we have the email settings set up we will quickly go over how to use the basic Alerts functionality. In the MT4 Terminal window there is a tab labelled “Alerts”, which if clicked will bring a list of all set Alerts. We can enter new Alerts by right clicking in this window and selecting the “Create” option. The Alert Editor dialog box will appear that will allow us to set email and other alert types to trigger when the market price of certain symbols breaches a defined price. The options are quite self-explanatory. If this facility is used on a VPS or unattended machine running MT4 that is always on then it can serve as quite a useful tool for a trader that is on the go but always has access to their email.
As you can see receiving trade notifications can be invaluable and make sure you don’t miss trading opportunities. If you are serious about trading we recommend you set up email alerts.