How to Change Chart Colours on MT5

The default colour scheme on MT5 (black bars on a white background) is functional but not the only option. Many traders prefer a dark background for long sessions to reduce eye strain. Others want specific colours that align with their setup across multiple monitors. MT5 makes the entire chart visual scheme customisable through the Chart Properties dialog, and once a custom scheme is built it can be saved as a template and applied to any chart with one click.

This guide walks through opening the Properties dialog, customising each chart colour element, applying built-in colour presets, and saving your scheme as a template (including how to make it the default for all new charts).

How to Open Chart Properties on MT5

There are three ways to open the Properties dialog for a chart on MT5.

The first is to right-click anywhere on the chart and select Properties from the context menu.

The second is to press F8 while the chart window is in focus.

The third is to use the menu bar: with the chart active, click Charts > Properties.

All three methods open the same dialog. The Properties dialog in MT5 contains the chart's display and colour settings, including a dedicated Colors tab where every visual element can be customised individually.

Using the Colors Tab

The Colors tab lists the chart elements that can be coloured individually. Each element has a colour swatch next to its name; clicking the swatch opens a colour picker. The available elements include:

Background: the main chart background colour.

Foreground: the colour of axis labels, price markers, and grid co-ordinates.

Grid: the colour of the gridlines that overlay the chart.

Bar Up and Bar Down: the colours used in bar chart mode for bars where the close is above (up) or below (down) the open.

Bull Candle and Bear Candle: the colours used in candlestick chart mode for candles where the close is above the open (bull) or below the open (bear).

Chart Line: the colour of the line in line chart mode.

Volumes: the colour of the volume bars at the bottom of the chart.

Bid Line: the colour of the optional horizontal line showing the current bid price.

Ask Line: the colour of the optional horizontal line showing the current ask price.

Stop Levels: the colour used for the stop-loss and take-profit visualisation lines when these are enabled.

Click the swatch next to any element to open the colour picker. Choose a colour and click OK in the picker. A small chart preview at the bottom of the Properties dialog shows how the chart will appear with the chosen colours.

When you are satisfied, click OK in the Properties dialog to apply the changes. Cancel discards them.

Applying a Built-in Colour Scheme

The Colors tab includes a Color Scheme dropdown at the top with built-in presets. Selecting a preset populates all the colour fields below in one step, after which you can fine-tune individual elements before clicking OK.

The standard MT5 presets include schemes such as Yellow on Black (yellow text and grid on a black background with green and red candles), Green on Black (green and red bars on a black background), and Black on White (the default light scheme). These presets are a quick way to start from a known baseline rather than building a scheme from scratch.

Saving Your Colour Scheme as a Template

A template in MT5 stores the chart's full visual configuration (colours, attached indicators, timeframe, scaling) so the same look can be applied to other charts with one action. Saving your colour scheme as a template means you do not need to redo the colour setup each time you open a new chart.

To save a template, right-click the chart and select Template > Save Template, or use Charts > Template > Save Template from the menu bar. Choose a descriptive name (for example, "DarkScheme") and click Save. The template is saved as a .tpl file in the MQL5/Profiles/Templates folder of your MT5 installation.

To apply the template to another chart, open the target chart, right-click it, select Template > Load Template, and choose your saved template from the list. The colour scheme and any other settings stored in the template are applied immediately.

Setting a Default Template for New Charts

If you want every new chart you open to use your custom colour scheme automatically, save the template with the filename "default".

Open the chart with your preferred colour scheme, then go to Charts > Template > Save Template (or right-click > Template > Save Template) and save the file with the name "default". From that point on, any new chart opened in MT5 uses this default template, including its colour scheme.

To revert to the original MT5 default, save a template using the Black on White preset under the name "default", overwriting the previous default.tpl file.

How It Compares to MT4

The process is broadly similar on MT4: right-click > Properties or F8, then use the Colors tab. MT5 typically exposes a slightly wider set of colour elements than MT4 (for example, separate Bid Line and Ask Line colours on MT5 versus only Ask Line on MT4), and uses an updated dialog layout.

Templates are not transferable between the two platforms. A .tpl file saved in MT4 lives in the MQL4/Profiles/Templates folder and uses a format suited to MT4's underlying chart engine; MT5 uses a different format in the MQL5/Profiles/Templates folder. If you use both, you will need to build colour schemes separately in each.

Practical Considerations

A high-contrast scheme (such as bright candles on a dark background) makes individual price action easier to read but can be tiring over long sessions. A lower-contrast scheme is gentler on the eye but can make subtle moves harder to distinguish.

Colour changes are purely visual. They do not affect price data, indicator calculations, order behaviour, or strategy tester results. The same trade setup looks identical underneath whether the background is black or white.

For traders running multiple monitors or many chart windows simultaneously, applying a consistent template across all charts helps with quick visual recognition: at a glance you can tell which symbol is on which screen by the colour scheme alone if you assign different schemes to different pair groups.

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