Question: Why "SMTP server" is required for MT5 (MetaTrader5) to send email notifications/alert?
MT5 trading platform(or in this case MetaQuotes) doesn’t have its own domain or a Server(such as SMTP server). to receive/send emails
Just like MT5 needs a trading server to be functional, Emails need a server like SMTP server which receives and sends emails to other email addresses.
SMTP stands for “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”, and it is basically a computer which receives and sends emails. It is also used as a basic “email sending” protocol used for TCP/IP network.
The sender(in this case the “MT5 trading platform”) will need to access your SMTP server where the domain is managed, and then finally the MT5 platform can send emails.
The reason why MT5 trading platform requires “SMTP Server” for sending email notification, is because MT5 platform itself doesn’t have a server for that option.
Push Notification to your mobile devices
If you are not familiar with SMTP servers or not sure how to acquire one for yourself, there is still another way to send notifications to your mobile devices.
By using the built-in “Push Notification” tool, you can receive all successfully executed trades to your mobile devices via MT5 mobile app.
In order to activate this option, you need to first install MT5 mobile app to your Android or iOS devices.
Then on the MT5 trading platform of your PC, go to “Tools” → “Options” → “Notifications”, and check the “Enable Push notifications” box.
To check the MetaQuotes ID, open the mobile version of the platform and go to Settings -> Messages.
That is how the page looks in the mobile platform for iPhone:
For the list of MT4 and MT5 brokers, please visit the page below.