# Why Your MT4 Trade History Looks Incomplete > Missing trades in MT4 history is a common problem with several possible causes. Here is how to identify and fix each one. **Tags:** mt4, trade-history, incomplete, troubleshooting **URL:** https://traderjournal.app/metatrader/why-mt4-trade-history-looks-incomplete --- # Why Your MT4 Trade History Looks Incomplete Missing trades in MT4's Account History is one of the most common support questions for journal users. Before assuming data is lost, work through these causes in order. --- ## Cause 1 - Date Range Is Too Short The most common cause of "missing" trades is a too-short date range selected in the Account History tab. By default, MT4 shows the last 3 months of history. If you are looking for a trade from 6 months ago, it will not appear until you change the filter. Fix: Right-click in the Account History tab > select All History or Custom Period and set a wider date range. --- ## Cause 2 - Looking at the Wrong Account If you have logged into multiple MT4 accounts from the same terminal, the history shown is for the currently logged-in account only. Check the account number displayed in the MT4 Navigator panel or in the top bar of the terminal. Compare it to the account number whose history you expect to see. Fix: Log in to the correct account (File > Login to Trade Account) and check the history again. --- ## Cause 3 - Broker Server History Limit Some brokers limit how far back they store account history on their servers. If your account is more than 2-3 years old, trades from the earliest period may have been purged from the broker's server. This is a broker-side limitation that MT4 cannot overcome. Once a trade is purged from the server, it is not retrievable through MT4. Fix: Contact your broker's support team and ask whether historical trade data can be recovered. Some brokers can provide archived statements going back further than what MT4 shows. --- ## Cause 4 - History Not Loaded from Server On a fresh MT4 installation or after switching accounts, the full history may not be loaded locally yet. MT4 loads history from the broker's server on request, and this process can be incomplete on the first login. Fix: Right-click in the Account History tab and select All History. MT4 will request the full available history from the broker's server. This may take a minute. If the list reloads and more trades appear, the history was simply not fetched yet. --- ## Cause 5 - EA Sync Started After Trades Occurred If you set up Trader Journal's EA sync after you had already been trading, trades before the sync started may not be in your journal. The EA captures trades going forward from its first run. Fix: The EA can push historical trades when configured correctly. When it first runs, it reads all closed trades from the account and pushes them. Check the Trader Journal app after the first full sync to see if historical trades appeared. If some are still missing, check the EA log in MT4's Experts tab for any error messages during the historical push. --- ## Cause 6 - Different Server Time Zone If trades are appearing in the history but at unexpected times (showing as 11pm when you know you traded at 9am), the issue is the broker's server time zone vs your local time zone. MT4 records all times in the broker's server time. This is typically UTC+2 or UTC+3 depending on the broker and time of year (daylight saving). This does not cause missing trades - it causes trades to appear at different times than you expect. If you are looking for a specific trade by time and not finding it, check whether you are accounting for the server time offset. --- For EA sync issues specifically, the MT4 Experts tab log is the most useful diagnostic tool. Download Trader Journal at android.traderjournal.app or ios.traderjournal.app.