It’s hard to keep track of places where you can download historical price data for MetaTrader. I decided to post a few links here on the blog to collect them all in one place.
FXDD offers historical price data for all the major currency pairs. The prices extend all the way back to 2005. This option is far and away the easiest to use. The files download in .hst format, which means that you don’t have to worry about formatting. The data resolution is at the M1 level. http://www.fxdd.com/mt/en/forex-resources/forex-trading-tools/metatrader-1-minute-data/
Alpari used to offer M1 data on its web site. They fluctuated between taking the links down and putting it back up eventually. Their download links, however, have been down for about two years now. It looks like they finally threw in the towel on offering free price histories.
FXCM offers the ability to export historical prices through their Strategy Trader platform. Obtaining the data is simple. The formatting is a little off, so you would need to write a simple program to convert this into an .hst file. http://www.fxcm.com/strategy-trader.jsp
GAIN offers free data, but they seem to make it intentionally difficult to find and work with. They split the data into one week intervals, and the price histories don’t appear to be even based on my quick glance over their csv file. I wouldn’t recommend going to all the trouble of downloading and formatting their data without a compelling reason. http://ratedata.gaincapital.com/
Dukascopy offers extensive price history down to the tick level. If you want tick prices going back quite a way back in time without paying for data, this is the only option that I know of. I have not messed around with it personally. I only know about it from internet chatter for people who seem to feel that they need tick data for their backtesting. The formatting is not designed for MetaTrader. Once again, you would have to write a conversion program to move it into the MetaTrader history center. http://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/data_feed/csv_data_export/