If you want to trade forex on your Mac successfully, you need the right tools to help identify the most profitable trades.
Although we think Macs are the best computers for traders, there’s less Mac compatible forex trading software on Mac than on Windows, so we’ve taken a closer look at the best forex trading software that work on macOS.
Before we start, It’s important to be aware that there’s a difference between forex trading platforms for Mac and forex trading software.
Forex trading platforms for Mac allow you sign-up with a broker and trade the currency market in real time.
Forex trading software (also known as forex charting software) refers to trading tools that help you do technical analysis of currency movements to help you make more profitable trades.
The best forex charting software like our top choice TradingView can do both. It allows you to do in-depth analysis of the market and also connects to broker platforms so that you can trade the FX market in real time.
Note that all of the forex software featured here can be used worldwide, including the USA and they all work with the latest version of macOS Catalina.
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With this in mind, here are the best forex charting tools for Mac to help you be a better trader.
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1. TradingView (Free)
TradingView is an incredibly popular community driven web-based stock and forex charting software that offers an easy to use way of tracking and analyzing forex currency markets.
It combines social networking with complex technical analysis tools making it good for both experienced traders and beginners to Forex trading on Mac.
TradingView has rapidly risen from just a few thousand users in 2012 to around seven million users today, mainly thanks to its wide array of charts and community driven content.
In fact, TradingViev is so good that many other major stock trading resources such Investopedia are integrated with TradingView for Forex trading analysis on Mac and PC.
The amazing thing about TradingView is that most of its features are completely free to use.
You can start using TradingView immediately for free in your browser.
Although TradingView used to be only for doing technical analysis of currency movements, you can now link it to third party brokers such as Oanda and TradeStation to trade forex too.
The TradingView Forex page provides a clear overview of the most important global developments in the currency markets with the real-time value of major currencies such as USD, Euro, JPY and GBP immediately visible.
There’s also a convenient Economic Calendar of important events and news feed for the latest currency news.
You will also see commentary from top traders giving advice and tips on currency movements and potential trades.
Although it’s free to sign-up for TradingView with most features included there are also Pro, Pro+ and Premium plans starting at $14.95 per month.
The main advantage of the plans is they provide faster real time data, a wider range of real-time stats, more intraday reports and you can have more charts per tab open.
Their paid plans also remove all ads and feeds for NASDAQ, NYSE and NYMEX are also included.
Basically the faster you have information and the more of it you have, the more your chances of making a profit on currency trades so the Pro plans are definitely worth it if you’re planning to trade forex seriously.
If you want to harness the knowledge and experience of thousands of other forex traders, TradingView is a remarkably effective tool to keep ahead of forex market trends and developments.
You can try a 30 day fully functional free trial of all TradingView Professional and Premium versions with no credit card required.
You can also check out our full TradingView review for more.
2. MotiveWave
MotiveWave is one of the few trading tools that has a native Mac desktop client and it’s easily one of the most professional and powerful forex trading software out there.
Like TradingView, MotiveWave is well integrated with external brokers and can be linked to multiple brokers including Oanda, Ameritrade and Forex.com.
MotiveWave is very powerful and can analyze huge amounts of data for complex patters and has some nifty advanced features like Replay Mode, Advanced Alerts and Multiple Monitor Mode (including for 4K displays).
It is definitely aimed at professional forex traders rather than beginners but if you’re not intimidated by complex technical analysis tools, you can get a lot out of it.
You can try MotiveWave for free and prices start at $99 for the basic charting version.
You can check out our full review of MotiveWave for more.
3. ThinkTrader
ThinkTrader (formerly Trade Interceptor) is a professional currency trading app for Mac with advanced trading and technical analysis tools.
You can use ThinkTrader to trade with brokers FXCM, SWISSQUOTE, OANDA and 24Option.
If you don’t like the platforms of these brokers, then using Think Trader on Mac is an excellent option because it has its own desktop app for macOS.
Using ThinkTrader to trade with these brokers is free and all are fully integrated with the native platform of each broker. You can even trade with multiple accounts and multiple brokers in one window.
The ThinkTrader app for Mac basically brings all the benefits of the ThinkTrader web trading platform to your Mac desktop without having to use your browser.
ThinkTrader provides live quotes and charts of more than 60 Forex currencies as well as Gold, Oil and Silver.
You can activate a useful News feed down the left hand margin to provide news in real-time for the Asian, European and American markets.
There are lots of technical analysis indicators, trend alerts and graphical tools to help you make trading decisions. You can set alarms for price drops and spikes and choose from multiple chart layouts and templates.
There’s also a useful “Traders Gym” which allows you to simulate trades – also known as Paper Trading – in real-time without risking real currency.
The smart thing about the Paper Trade feature is that you can pick any previous time frame or currency, and trade as if it were happening now in real-time which is a great way to learn now to trade better and see what works and what doesn’t in the currency markets.
The Mac app syncs your trading with the web platform and ThinkTrader iOS app so that you can continue trading on the move.
ThinkTrader is updated regularly, including with new features which is important for Mac users to ensure that the software continues to work with new releases of macOS.
4. Latinum
Latinum is a new professional trading and technical analysis software for Mac and PC which is focused on analysing forex and CFDs (Contract for Difference).
Latinum is designed for discretionary (non-automated) traders and quickly enables you to determine risk, make orders quickly via a Mini Order Ticket feature and more easily manage order and positions with a Mini Blotter.
Latinum supports a wide range of chart types including Candlestick, HLC (High-Low-Close), Heiken-Ashi, OHLC (Open-High-Low-Close), Step, Dot, Line, Histogram, Area, Candlestick Trend, Invisible, Hollow Candlestick, HL (High-Low), Colored Line and Real Body.
Latinum is also very good at helping you quickly ascertain risk, execute orders and manage your positions.
You can quickly determine risk with useful indicators displayed on the ticket such as Risk/Reward, pip value, stop-loss distance in pips and price.
There’s a Mini Order Ticket to enter orders faster with single click entry and essentials such as stop-loss and take-profit included.
For quick order management, there’s a Mini Blotter which displays opened trades and pending orders. You can conveniently right-click on a trade to allow scaling of trades (such as partial close), two-click stop-loss and take profit editing.
This makes it easier to manage, cancel or close orders and trades than on a lot of Mac Forex software.
Since it’s quite a new Forex trading app for Mac, Latinum only works with FXCM Trading Station/Marketscope accounts and OANDA fxTrade Practice accounts although this will probably be expanded in the future.
There is also a Latinum trading simulator to practice trading on and get a feel for it.
You can download Latinum from the Mac App Store and connect directly to FXCM, OANDA or just use the Forex trading simulator to decide whether Latinum is for you before buying.
Overall, Latinum is a very promising professional Forex trading tool which doesn’t complicate things with unnecessary features or extra assets and focuses on making it easier to trade Forex quicker and more efficiently.
5. cTrader
cTrader has rapidly developed to become one of the major Forex trading rivals to MT4 and this has grown due to the already mentioned incompatibility problems between macOS Catalina and MetaTrader.
cTrader only has a desktop client for Windows but Mac users can now use the cTrader web client which offers all the functionality of the desktop client.
The cTrader platform looks and feels a bit slicker than MT4, it’s easier to navigate and it supports more order types. However, in terms of overall features, there’s not much to choose between them, especially for beginners.
The same features such as charts, trade logging, account management tools, back testing and technical indicators are all available in both.
For those that are already accustomed to MT4 and want something very similar on their Mac, the cTrader web platform is certainly worth a closer look.
Why Is MT4 Not In This List?
MetaTrader 4 (more commonly known as MT4) is easily the most popular forex trading software out there although the most recent version is MT5.
However the big problem for Mac users is that there’s no version of MT4 for Mac and since macOS Catalina there’s no way to install it easily on a Mac due to new limitations imposed by Apple in macOS.
Some forex platforms have their own branded version of MT4 that they’ve adapted to work on macOS but they do not work on macOS Catalina due to the lack of 32-bit application support in Catalina.
Besides this, they also don’t offer the full features of MetaTrader on a Mac anyway (such as MetaTrader Market) so you won’t get the full experience of MT4 anyway.
We therefore strongly recommend using TradingView as the best alternative to MT4 on Mac.
TradingView has more charts and technical indicators, more time frames and it’s far easier to use than MetaTrader which hasn’t been updated for years.
Not only that but you can start using TradingView immediately for free in your browser.
If you can’t live without MT4 however, there are however still ways to use MT4 on a Mac and we recommend you read our guide on the best ways to run MetaTrader on Mac to see how.