Trade Copier Console is a local trade copier between MetaTrader terminals on one PC or VPS. It does not close your trades when something goes wrong: it holds them and tells you what is happening. That is the main property of the product, and this manual is built around it.
The MT5 build copies between MT5 terminals, and also from and to MT4. The MT4 build does the same from the MT4 side. The bridge runs in every direction — 5→5, 4→4, 4→5, 5→4 — and it needs both builds: each terminal runs its own.
The full versions are on the Market, one per platform: (Trade Copier Console — MT5) and (Trade Copier Console — MT4).
This manual covers both platforms. Wherever MT4 and MT5 behave differently, it is said explicitly. Installing the free demo and making the first run is a separate article: (demo: install and first run).
Before you start
Both terminals on one machine. The copier talks through the MetaTrader shared folder (%APPDATA%\MetaQuotes\Terminal\Common\Files). This is not a limit of the product but of the platform: a network between machines would need a DLL, and the Market does not allow them. A side benefit: local copying does not look to a prop firm like a cloud copy-trading service, which many firms ban by a separate clause.
Allow expert advisors to trade in both terminals — the Algo Trading button in MT5, AutoTrading in MT4.
A hedging receiver is preferable. Netting is supported, but with caveats — they are collected in the last section.
Start on a demo account. Always. Any copier means somebody else's decisions on your account.
Quick start in five minutes
The expert advisor goes onto one chart of your choice in each terminal. The symbol and the timeframe do not matter: the copier works with the whole account.
The source terminal. One setting:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Account role | Source (send my trades) |
The source publishes its positions and never trades.
The receiver terminal. Three settings:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Account role | Receiver (copy trades to this account) |
| Master account numbers (comma separated) | the source account number, for example 50934471 |
| Lot sizing method | Risk a fixed percent of my equity |
| Risk per copy, % of my equity | 1.0 |
Several sources are listed with commas, up to eight: 50934471, 61200318.
That is all. The receiver panel shows the master account, a green LIVE status and the bus latency. Open a trade on the source and it appears on the receiver.
If the master does not show up while the source is running, the two terminals are writing into different shared folders. A running source puts m_<its account number>.bin into Common\Files\TCC\. No file means one of the terminals runs in portable mode or under a different Windows user, so its shared folder is its own. Copying files by hand solves nothing — that terminal has to be reinstalled properly.
Reading the panel
The receiver panel reads from top to bottom, and every block answers a question of its own.
| Block | What it is |
|---|---|
| The two nodes and the line between them | The master account, your account, and the link between them carrying pulses. One pulse is one delivered snapshot of the book. |
| The lines under the nodes | Link status and the position count on both sides: LIVE means the snapshots are fresh, MIRRORING is how many copies are being tracked right now. |
| SIZING | The sizing method in force right now, with its parameter. |
| GUARD | How much of the daily limit is spent, as a bar and a number. |
| SPEED | Three honest numbers: poll, bus, fill. Explained below. |
| TODAY | Copied, skipped and failed since the start of the day. |
| Mirror | The master's positions matched line by line against your copies. It scrolls, and the lines that need attention float to the top. |
| EVENTS | The journal of recent events with time and latency. |
| The buttons at the bottom | PAUSE, RESYNC, CLOSE COPIES. The source has a different set: PAUSE FEED, RESYNC, CLEAR LOG. |
On the source the panel answers a different question — not "what did I copy" but "who is listening to me". On the left its own account, server and open position count; on the right how many receivers are connected and how many of them are in sync; and at the bottom, instead of Mirror, a RECEIVERS table: account, server, a copy count in the form 4/4, and the lag of each receiver.
Panel colours
Colour says who has to act, not "good or bad".
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | Done and alive. The copy is open, the volumes agree, the link is up. |
| Copper | On its way, or "pay attention". An order is sent and waiting for the broker; a pending order is waiting for its level; the guard has passed half of the limit. |
| Red | A human is needed. A refusal with a reason, a lost link, a tripped guard. |
| Grey | The master is silent, or a copy is orphaned — no pair was found for it. |
Trade direction, buy or sell, is not encoded by colour — otherwise colour stops meaning anything.
The SPEED line — three honest numbers
| Number | What it means |
|---|---|
| poll | How often the copier looks at the master's snapshot. This is your Copy speed setting. |
| bus | How long the trade travelled on the bus. On average this is half the poll period — that is how delivery works: a trade appears at a random moment between two checks. Seeing bus 48 at poll 100 is normal and correct. |
| fill | How long your broker thought about the order. Usually several times larger than the first two. |
If copying feels slow, look at the third number. It is almost always the broker, not the copier.
Buttons
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| PAUSE | Stop copying. Open copies stay and keep being managed. |
| RESYNC | Forget the map and rebuild it from the market. It closes nothing. It also clears the history of closes, so positions the master still holds will be copied again. |
| CLOSE COPIES | Close every copy the copier opened. Manual trades and other expert advisors are left alone. |
Settings:
Every setting works at its default. Below they are described group by group, in the same order as in the properties dialog.
Role
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Account role | Source — publish my trades. Receiver — copy someone else's. Self copier — multiply my own trades on this same account. |
| Master account numbers (comma separated) | Source account numbers separated by commas, up to eight. Not needed for the Source role. |
Lot sizing — how the copy volume is calculated
Volume is not carried as a lot. Gold can have a contract size of 10 at your broker against 100 at the master's — "the same lot" would mean ten times the risk. The copier carries money.
| Method | What it does | Needs a stop on the master |
|---|---|---|
| Risk a fixed percent of my equity (default) | Every copy risks X% of your equity | Yes |
| Mirror the master's risk share | The master risked 2% of their account — you risk 2% of yours | Yes |
| Risk a fixed money amount | Every copy risks exactly N of account currency | Yes |
| Proportional to equity | Lot × (your account / master's account) | No |
| Master lot x multiplier | The master's lot × a coefficient | No |
| Fixed lot | Always the same lot | No |
| Same lot as master | The lot copied one to one | No |
| Lot per 1000 of my account | 0.01 lot per every 1000 of the account | No |
If the master has no stop and the method requires one, the copier does not refuse: it sizes proportionally and writes it in the journal — no stop on master - sized proportionally.
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Account size means… | Equity, balance or free margin — what to size from |
| Scale for mirrored / proportional sizing | A common multiplier for the proportional methods |
| Minimum / Maximum copied lot | Bounds on the copy volume, 0 means no bound |
| Per-symbol lot override | A lot of its own per symbol: EURUSD=0.10; XAUUSD=0.05 |
| Per-symbol multiplier | A multiplier of its own per symbol: EURUSD=2; XAUUSD=0.5 |
| Split a copy that exceeds the broker maximum lot | A copy above the broker's maximum is cut into parts automatically |
| Split every copy into parts of this lot | Force every copy into chunks of N lots — some prop firms cap the lot per trade. The ceiling is 64 orders per copy: if the chunk size would need more, the chunk grows, but the copy volume stays complete |
| Broker volume step override | The volume step, if the broker reports it incorrectly — 0.001 for crypto, for instance |
Filters — what to copy and what not
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Copy only these symbols / Never copy these symbols | Whitelist and blacklist. Spelling does not matter — the comparison runs on the core of the name, so EURUSD, eurusd.m and .EURUSDcash are one symbol |
| Copy only these magic numbers / Never copy… | A filter on the master's expert advisors |
| Direction to copy | Both sides, buy only or sell only |
| Maximum spread to copy | Do not copy on a wide spread, 0 is off |
| Maximum slippage | Allowed slippage, in points |
| Copy only trades whose comment contains / Never copy… | A filter on the master trade's comment |
| Copy master positions already open at start | Off by default: at startup only new trades are copied. Switch it on to pick up what is already open |
| Copy stop loss and take profit | Carry the master's stops. Stops travel as a distance, not as a price — with different quotes that is the only correct way |
| Reverse | Copy buy as sell and the other way round |
| Ignore master trades smaller / bigger than | Cut off by the master's lot size |
| Skip if price already ran this far from master entry | Do not join a trade that has already run N points, 0 is off |
| Wait for a better price than the master entry + …better by at least | Wait for a price better than the master's entry. The trade may never open — that is by design |
| Per-symbol spread caps | XAUUSD=50; BTCUSD=1500 |
How "better" and "ran away" are measured. Only in the master's own coordinates: their entry price against their own current price. Comparing your quote with another broker's price is meaningless — they drift apart on their own.
Copy window — when to copy
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Copy on Monday … Sunday | Days of the week |
| Copy only during these hours | Hours: 09:00-18:00. Several intervals with commas: 09:00-12:00,14:00-18:00. Across midnight too: 22:00-03:00 |
| Delay each copy by at least / at most | A delay per copy, in seconds. A range means a random value inside it |
| Do not copy a trade older than | Do not copy a trade older than N seconds — protection against catching up after a long disconnect |
The window restricts opening only. Closing always works — otherwise a copy would hang open until Monday.
Symbol matching — instrument names
The copier sorts symbol names out by itself, and this group usually needs no attention. The master publishes its own prefix and suffix; yours are detected from your own symbol list. EURUSD.r finds EURUSD, GOLD finds XAUUSD, USTEC100m finds NDX100.
An ambiguity is a refusal, not a guess. The copier would rather decline and show you the candidates than open the wrong instrument.
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Symbol aliases | A manual mapping when the automatics could not cope: US500=SPX500; GOLD=XAUUSD |
| My symbol prefix / My symbol suffix | Your affixes, if the detection got them wrong |
Copy management — the life of a copy after it opens
Hedging accounts only.
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Leave SL/TP alone after I move them by hand | You moved a copy's stop by hand — the copier never touches that copy's stops again |
| Virtual SL/TP | Stops never reach the broker. The copier holds them itself and closes the position on touch |
| Reopen a copy that hit its stop while the master still holds | Off by default: a copy that caught its stop does not come back |
| My stop loss / take profit if none was copied | Your own levels where the master set none |
| …or take profit as reward/risk of the stop | A take profit as an R:R of the stop, 2.0 for instance |
| Move stop to entry after… + …plus offset | Break-even |
| Start trailing after… · Trailing distance · Move the trail in steps of | Trailing stop. The step is mandatory: without it the modification would go out on every tick |
| Close a copy after N minutes | Copy lifetime |
| Close all copies on <day> at HH:MM | A scheduled close, all copies on Friday at 23:45 for instance. It survives a terminal restart and will not fire twice in a day |
| Close all copies at combined profit / loss | Basket: the combined floating result of all copies, in money or percent |
Risk guard — protection for the receiving account
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Daily loss limit (% and money) | The daily loss. Reached — copying stops until the next day |
| Stop for the day after this profit (% and money) | A daily profit target. A good day is banked instead of being handed back |
| Total loss limit | Total drawdown from the historical balance peak |
| Close everything if equity falls below / rises above | Hard equity rails |
| Pause copying while master / my floating drawdown exceeds | A pause during drawdown. Open copies are not touched |
| Trade server requests per day cap | A budget of server requests. Prop firms ban expert advisors for flooding — FTMO draws the line above 2000 a day |
| Trip the guard at this % of the limit | 80% by default: stopping at −4% on a −5% limit beats breaching the limit on a volatile candle |
| Close open copies when the guard trips | Close the copies when the guard fires |
| Maximum open copies / per symbol | Ceilings by count |
| Maximum total / per-symbol open volume | Ceilings by volume |
| Maximum risk of all open copies / per symbol | Ceilings by risk, stops required |
| Never hold opposite positions on one symbol | Anti-hedge |
| Trading day starts this many hours from broker midnight | For prop accounts. The firm counts the day in its own timezone, the broker in another. The mismatch is a breach your expert advisor never saw |
Trading
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Copy speed | 25 / 50 / 100 (default) / 250 / 500 ms. In practice there is no visible execution difference between 50 and 100, and 100 loads the machine half as much. 250–500 is for a weak VPS running several terminals |
| Magic number for copied trades | The magic of the copies. It is what separates them from your manual trades |
| Comment on copies | The comment. Substitutions: # is the master's comment, @ its ticket, % its magic, & its account |
Panel and Notifications
Theme dark or light, size automatic by screen DPI, position and fonts adjustable. Push notifications on every copy, on a tripped guard and on a lost link. Plus a copy by e-mail, for which the terminal's mail settings have to be filled in.
Ready-made recipes
One-to-one copying onto an identical account. Lot sizing method = Same lot as master.
Copying onto an account of a different size. Lot sizing method = Proportional to equity. The master holds 10 000 and you hold 2 000 — the lot is divided by five.
Copying with honest risk, recommended. Lot sizing method = Risk a fixed percent of my equity, Risk per copy, % of my equity = 1.0. Every copy risks one percent of your account — whatever lot the master trades, whatever broker they use and whatever contract size the instrument has.
The MT4 → MT5 bridge. On the MT4 terminal, the MT4 build in the Source role. On the MT5 terminal, the MT5 build in the Receiver role with the MT4 account number in Master account numbers. Nothing else. Partial closes, scale-ins and pending orders cross correctly in both directions.
A cautious start on somebody else's account:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Copy master positions already open at start | false — new trades only |
| Maximum open copies | 3 |
| Daily loss limit, % | 3.0 |
| Close open copies when the guard trips | true |
Pending orders
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| Place a matching pending order (recommended) — the default mode | Places your own pending order of the same type |
| Copy at trigger | Places nothing. When the master's order triggers, the resulting position is copied at market |
| Do not copy pending orders | Pending orders are visible on the panel but not copied |
The level travels as a distance from the market. A buy limit 30 points below the master's market becomes a buy limit 30 points below yours. An absolute price from another broker cannot be carried — the quotes never match.
Expiry travels the same way, as a distance in time. If your broker does not support order expiry, the copier places the order as GTC and says so once in the journal: losing the expiry is better than losing the trade.
The level has already been passed? If the price at your broker has run past the level, the order is executed at market immediately: a limit beyond its own level is a price no worse than requested, and a stop beyond its own level is exactly the breakout it was waiting for.
The master's order triggered — yours triggers too, or catches up at market if it did not make it. After that it is an ordinary copy: trims, scale-ins and closes work as always.
Reverse together with pending orders. Under a reversal a buy limit would have to become a sell stop — a different order type with a different meaning. The copier does not swap the type silently: with Reverse on, pending orders are automatically copied at trigger.
MT5 stop limit orders are not copied — MT4 has no such type, and quietly turning them into plain stops means executing at a price the master never asked for. The panel shows an honest refusal with the reason.
Self copier: multiplying your own trades
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Account role | Self copier |
| Lot sizing method | Master lot x multiplier |
| Master lot multiplier | 2.0 |
Your manual trade of 0.10 makes the copier open its own of 0.20, so 0.30 is in the market. Close the manual one and the copy closes. The copies carry the copier's magic and never copy themselves, which would be an exponent.
What it is for: scaling manual trading without recalculating the lot in your head, and it works on the MQL5 VPS.
On a netting account the Self mode is refused — the expert advisor will not start. In netting your trade and its copy merge into one position, and "close the copy" would mean closing your own trade. Declining to start is more honest than doing that.
Prop accounts
What actually kills funded accounts under copying is not copy detection — it is the copier's own lag. On a reversal the orders go out one after another: for a fraction of a second one account is already short while the other is still long. The firm sees a counter position and deactivates every account.
So a reversal here is executed as "close, confirm flat, then open". The new side is not sent until flat is confirmed on the book. A state of "part long, part short" does not exist.
The settings profile for a firm:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Daily loss limit, % | 5.0 — the firm's rule |
| Total loss limit, % | 10.0 — the firm's rule |
| Trip the guard at this % of the limit | 80 — fire early |
| Trading day starts this many hours… | the firm's timezone offset from the broker's |
| Trade server requests per day cap | 1500 — FTMO bans above 2000 |
| Close open copies when the guard trips | true |
Every action is written to a millisecond audit file — Common\Files\TCC\audit_<account>.csv. You can appeal to the firm with it.
What the copier does not do: it does not randomise lots and does not mask the fact that you are copying. Firms look for exactly those attempts, and FTMO and The5ers both ban positions "substantially larger or smaller" than your others — so the volume jitter itself becomes the violation. A deterministic size derived from equity is explained by risk management and defensible in an appeal.
What the copier says and what it means
The reason for a refusal stands where the copy would have been.
| Message | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| symbol not found here (tried: BTCUSD, BTCUSD.r, BTCUSDT) | Your broker does not have the instrument. Everything the copier tried is listed | Add a mapping in Symbol aliases — or nothing, if you do not need the instrument |
| ambiguous symbol (candidates: …) | Several names matched. The copier does not guess | Name it explicitly in Symbol aliases |
| spread 42 > 30 pts | The spread is wider than your cap | Nothing. The copier waits for a normal spread |
| not enough margin (need 412, free 180) | Not enough free margin | Lower the risk or fund the account |
| lot rounds below the broker minimum | The calculated volume is under the minimum lot | Raise the risk or the multiplier |
| daily guard -5.0% reached | The daily limit tripped | Copying resumes at the start of the next trading day |
| master silent | The master is not answering. The copies are held | Check that the source terminal is running |
| account number clash | Two different servers are broadcasting under this account number — it happens when two brokers issue the same number. Copying is frozen, the copies are held, nothing was closed | Leave only one of the terminals as a source, then press RESYNC |
| no master pair (an orphan) | The copier found its own position but no master for it | Your call: keep it or close it by hand. The copier will not close it itself |
| closed here - it will not be reopened | The copy was closed by you or by its stop — it does not come back | This is the expected behaviour |
| pending, waiting | The pending order is placed and waiting for its level | Nothing |
| pending level already passed | Your price is already past the level — entered at market | Nothing |
| master holds both sides, anti-hedge is on | The master holds both buy and sell on the symbol while anti-hedge is on | Turn anti-hedge off or leave it as it is |
| … - retrying in 30 s | The broker refused for a reason that will not fix itself in a second | Read the reason printed before this suffix |
| netting: copying paused | You pressed CLOSE COPIES on a netting account | Press PAUSE to resume copying |
Diagnostics
No copies appear. Does the panel show the master and LIVE? If not, the number in Master account numbers is wrong, or the source is not running, or the terminals use different shared folders. Is there a Mirror line with a reason? See the message table above. No line at all? The trade was filtered out by symbol, magic, comment, size, direction or the time window. Check Copy master positions already open at start — it is off by default, so trades opened before the start are not copied.
There are more copies than the master has trades. Most likely two instances of the expert advisor are running on one account. The copier catches that and refuses to start as the second one — Already running on <chart> — but if you see duplicates, check the charts.
The latency looks large. Look at the SPEED line. The number after fill is your broker, and the copier has no influence over it. The number after bus averages half of poll, which is the normal arithmetic of delivery.
A copy closed while the master still holds. That is correct in two cases: your own stop was hit — your broker has its own quote — or a Copy management rule fired: lifetime, basket, schedule, a virtual stop. The reason is in the journal and in the audit file. If you want a copy restored after its own stop, switch on Reopen a copy that hit its stop.
Files you can look into:
| File | What is inside |
|---|---|
| Common\Files\TCC\audit_<account>.csv | The full journal with milliseconds |
| Common\Files\TCC\audit_<account>.1.csv | The previous journal — the file rolls over at 5 MB |
| Common\Files\TCC\m_<account>.bin | The snapshot of the master's book |
| MQL5\Files\TCC\map_<account>.bin | The map of copies, local to the terminal |
The map can be deleted while the expert advisor is stopped — the copier rebuilds it from the market and closes nothing: whatever cannot be matched becomes an orphan and waits for your decision.
Limits, honestly
- Both terminals on one machine. A network between machines would need a DLL, and the Market does not allow them.
- MT4 and MT5 are separate purchases. The Market is platform specific. The bridge runs in every direction, but each terminal runs its own build.
- MT5 stop limit orders are not copied — MT4 has no such order type.
- A netting receiver has to be dedicated to the copier. In netting there is one position per symbol for the whole account, and telling a copy from your own trade is impossible in principle. On netting, pending orders and the whole Copy management block are unavailable, and CLOSE COPIES additionally pauses copying. The Self copier mode is refused on netting.
- Copying does not work in the strategy tester — there is nobody to copy from. The panel still runs so you can look at the product.
All of this can be tried on a demo account for free, with no features held back: (demo: install and first run). The full versions are on the Market: (Trade Copier Console — MT5) and (Trade Copier Console — MT4).
