How to export your trade history from MetaTrader 5
Published Jul 7, 2026
MetaTrader 5 will produce a complete record of every position you have closed, in a file you can keep or import elsewhere. It is a four-click operation once you know where the menu is, and the menu is not where most people look for it.
Open the History tab in the Toolbox
In MetaTrader 5, open the Toolbox panel at the bottom of the terminal (View → Toolbox, or Ctrl+T). Select the History tab. This shows closed positions only — open positions live in the Trade tab and will not appear in the export, which is correct, because a position with no exit has no result to journal.
Set the period before you export
Right-click inside the History tab and choose the period you want — Last 3 Months, or Custom Period for a specific range. The export contains exactly what the tab is currently displaying, which is the single most common reason an exported file comes back looking almost empty: the period was still set to Today.
Save as Report, not as Detailed Report
Right-click again and choose Report. MetaTrader 5 offers HTML and XLSX; both are fine, and both are accepted by BetterTradeJourney. Choose a location you will remember and save. The Detailed Report contains additional broker-side sections that are not needed for journaling.
Check the file before you rely on it
Open the saved file. You should see a table of closed deals with tickets, symbols, volumes, open and close prices, commission and swap. If you see headers and no rows, the period filter in step two was too narrow — go back and widen it.
Importing it into BetterTradeJourney
Sign in, open Import, and drop the file in. Every position is parsed and matched on its broker ticket ID, which means re-importing an overlapping period updates what is already there rather than creating duplicates. You can export a fresh report every week without ever tidying up afterwards.