If you truly need to recover lost source code, your best bet is rewriting the EA or restoring from a backup.
| If you... | Verdict | |-----------|---------| | Lost your own simple EA (build < 1000) | Worth a try in a sandboxed/virtual machine | | Want to steal a commercial EA | No – illegal and unlikely to work | | Are non-technical | No – too risky and complex | | Use the latest MT4 build | No – 5.0.1 likely won’t work | ex4 to mq4 decompiler50 1 exe new
: Decompiling proprietary software often violates copyright laws and End User License Agreements (EULA). Most trading communities, including MQL5 , ban users who request or offer decompilation services. If you truly need to recover lost source
The safest and only reliable way to get an MQ4 file is to request the source code directly from the original author. Most trading communities, including MQL5 , ban users
warn that many of these tools are scams. Some require upfront payments (ranging from small fees to $600) with no guarantee of a working file. Technical Limitations
Hackers name files exactly like this to bait traders into downloading viruses.