DailyUS RTHGlobexLondonTokyoSydneyUTCCustom
| The count | Basic tool | ProBarCounter |
|---|---|---|
| Every bar numbered from the session start below, above or in the body of the bar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Eight session modes US RTH, Globex, London, Tokyo, Sydney, UTC, daily or custom; basic tool: chart session only | ✓ | |
| Weekend handling for custom sessions reset every day, or skip Saturday, the weekend, or Friday and Saturday | ✓ | |
| Every bar, or every 2nd, 3rd, 5th or 10th odd or even too; a basic tool does every 2nd bar only | ✓ | |
| Flags the bars that matter | ||
| New session highs and lows H above, L below as soon as the bar closes; elsewhere that takes a second tool | ✓ | ✓ |
| Inside bars range fully inside the bar before; circle, IB, triangle or arrow | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outside bars range fully covering the bar before; circle, OB, triangle or arrow | ✓ | ✓ |
| Count and flags in one indicator the usual route is two separate tools, one of them written for NinjaTrader 7 | ✓ | |
| Info box with the running counts current bar, inside, outside, new highs, new lows, in any corner | ✓ | |
| Correct by design | ||
| No repaint a bar is classified when it closes and never changes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Counts from your session’s open not from the chart’s day; basic tool: needs a matching template | ✓ | ✓ |
| Labels thin out when you zoom out auto-skip keeps the chart readable; days to show limits the history | ✓ | |
| Yours to set | ||
| Font, size, color, opacity and distance per mark group; basic tools have size, color and distance | ✓ | |
| Five presets Default, Brooks, Minimal, Focus Mode, Advanced; change any marker setting and it becomes Custom | ✓ | |
| Dark or light chart near-white colors darken by themselves on a light background | ✓ | |
| Free, with free updates no trial, no locked settings, no upsell; the usual alternatives were last updated in 2019 and 2011 | ✓ | ✓ |
In short: NinjaTrader 8 and a chart. That is all ProBarCounter needs.
Built for intraday bars. On a daily or higher chart the whole chart counts as one session. Keep the data series on Calculate: On bar close, the default; a bar is classified when it closes.
Every bar is counted. Show all numbers, odd or even only, or every 2nd, 3rd, 5th or 10th.
Today’s session by default. Raise Days to show labels and earlier sessions keep their labels too.
Numbers, flags and markers each get their own color, font, size, opacity and distance.
Counts what you switch on: bar number, inside and outside bars, new highs and lows.
You might ask why this is free, and what the catch is. There is none. We want to change the market for third-party NinjaTrader tools, and giving our work away is part of how we do it.
To say it plainly, this market is overpriced and full of low-quality tools with missing features and bugs. Vendors charge hundreds of dollars for simple indicators. No indicator, add-on or tool will make you profitable. A good one makes your trading environment better, and you know that already, or you would not be here looking.
Our goal is the highest-quality products we can build, tools that make a real difference on the chart. We get there by testing hard, on live charts before every release, with feedback from the traders who use them and a close read of what the forums complain about. We offer a full refund within 14 days, we adapt tools for customers who ask, and we give most of our work away.
Most of our tools are free for a reason. We want you to try them, see the quality and the features for yourself, and not spend a dollar with us until you think a tool deserves it. We are a business and we intend to make money, by solving real problems for traders.
So yes, ProBarCounter is completely free, no strings attached. If you like it, there are more free tools and paid ones priced well under what is usual in this market. If you have any questions, please email us at support@usefulindicators.com.
No card, no license key, no expiry. Nothing to cancel because nothing was started.
Download freeYour download is on your order page right after checkout.
Four ways to read a session that is already counted for you. None of them is a signal; the entries, the stops and the discipline are still yours.
“Wait for bar 3 to close” is only useful when everyone agrees which bar is bar 3. Every bar carries its number, so there is no recounting and no arguing with yourself.
Inside bars are marked as they close. When they start stacking, the market is squeezing; you see it form without hunting candle by candle.
New session highs and lows are flagged as each bar closes. One glance tells you whether the push made new ground or stalled inside the range.
Trading London or Tokyo hours? Pick the session mode and the count starts where your market opens, so your numbers match your playbook.
New to bar counting? Read the full guide →
Can’t find the answer to your question? Email us, we answer fast.
Download the zip, then in NinjaTrader 8 go to Tools → Import → NinjaScript Add-On and pick the file. Add ProBarCounter to any chart from the Indicators list, pick a preset or set your own session mode, and the numbers are on the chart — most traders are done in under a minute. The step-by-step guide covers every message NinjaTrader can show and the update rule.
Genuinely free — no trial period, no locked settings, no license key, nothing to upgrade to. We sell other indicators; free tools like this one are how we show you the quality of the work first.
Whenever your session mode says so. Daily resets at midnight in your chart’s time zone. US RTH resets at 09:30 New York, Globex at the 18:00 New York reopen, London at 08:00 London, Tokyo and Sydney at 09:00 local, UTC at 00:00 UTC. Custom takes any hour and minute in US Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific or UTC, with a choice of resetting every day, or skipping Saturday, the weekend, or Friday and Saturday.
An inside bar’s whole range sits inside the bar before it. An outside bar’s range covers the whole bar before it. Both are judged when the bar closes, so a marker never appears and then vanishes. The first bar of a session gets no marker or flag; it is the reference the bars after it are judged against.
No. A bar gets its number and its markers when it closes, and they never change afterwards. Keep the data series on Calculate: On bar close (the default); set to anything else, the indicator warns you on the chart instead of guessing.
Yes — tick, minute, second, volume, range and Renko charts, any instrument, any data provider. It needs no volume data. On a daily or higher chart the whole chart counts as one session, since a session inside a day cannot be told apart there.
Forty-nine settings in eight groups, and the six things they add up to. The names in bold are the names in the indicator’s settings window.
Show bar numbers numbers every bar of the session from 1 at the open. Bar number position is below the low, above the high or in the body; Bar number frequency is every bar, odd or even, or every 2nd, 3rd, 5th or 10th. Days to show labels keeps today or up to 30 sessions back; Auto-skip at zoom-out thins the numbers and hides the inside and outside markers when bars get too tight.
Show inside bars marks every bar whose whole range sits inside the bar before it: a high no higher and a low no lower, while a bar with exactly the same high and low is neither. It is judged at the close and never changes after it, and two in a row, the ii pattern, show as two markers. The Marker style is a circle, an IB label, a triangle or an arrow.
Show outside bars marks the opposite: a bar whose range covers the whole bar before it, a high at least as high and a low at least as low, the bar where both sides tried and neither held. Its Marker style is a circle, an OB label, a triangle or an arrow. Numbers, H/L flags, inside and outside markers each take their own color, font, size (8 to 24), Opacity % and Distance from bar (pixels).
Show H / L bars puts an H above every bar that makes a new session high and an L below every bar that makes a new session low, in its own High color and Low color, as the bar closes. Show info box keeps the session’s tally in a corner of the chart: the current bar number and how many inside bars, outside bars, new highs and new lows so far.
Session reset sets bar 1: Daily at midnight in your chart’s time zone, RTH_US at 09:30 New York, Globex at the 18:00 New York reopen, London_Open at 08:00 London, Tokyo_Open and Sydney_Open at 09:00 local, UTC_Midnight, or Custom with Custom reset hour (0-23), Custom reset minute (0-59) and Custom reset timezone; Custom weekend handling decides which days skip the reset.
Preset applies a whole look in one click: Default (every mark on, circles), Brooks (white numbers on every bar, H and L, IB labels, outside bars off), Minimal (numbers only, every 5th bar), Focus_Mode (faint numbers, strong flags and triangles) or Advanced (every mark on, IB and OB labels). Touch any marker setting and it reads Custom; Auto adjust colors dark/light theme keeps near-white labels readable on a light chart.
It thins itself out. Zoom out and crowded labels auto-skip; number every 2nd, 3rd, 5th or 10th bar if you prefer; limit the labels to the current session (the default) or up to 30 sessions back; and the Minimal preset is numbers only, every fifth bar.
No, and we won’t pretend it is. It counts and flags structure — which bar you are on, which bars made new ground, which ones coiled. What you do with that is the trade, and that stays yours.
Yes. Show inside bars and Show outside bars mark them as each bar closes: an inside bar has a high no higher and a low no lower than the bar before it, an outside bar covers that bar. Each gets a circle, an IB or OB label, a triangle or an arrow, with its own color, font, size, opacity and distance from the bar, and the info box can count them for the session. With Show bar numbers, Show H / L bars and Show outside bars off, it is an inside bar indicator alone.
No bar counter: nothing in NinjaTrader 8’s own indicator list numbers the bars of a session. Its Candlestick Pattern indicator finds 25 patterns, among them Harami and Engulfing, which look close but are judged differently: they are measured against the previous candle’s body, its open and close, and, by default, need a trend before them. An inside or outside bar is judged on the whole high-to-low range and needs neither. The bar counting guide goes through NinjaTrader’s own options.
That is what the Brooks preset is for: every bar numbered in white below the candle, the new-high and new-low bars flagged H and L, inside bars marked IB and outside bars left quiet. Set Session reset to RTH_US and bar 1 is the first bar after the 09:30 New York open, the day-session count Brooks-style reading uses; every other session mode works the same way, and every setting in the preset can be changed. We are not affiliated with Al Brooks; the preset is named after the way he numbers bars.
Yes. Show info box, off by default, adds a small panel in the corner you choose, and each line is its own switch: the indicator name, the session mode, the current bar number (Bar 47) and the session’s running totals of inside bars, outside bars, new highs and new lows. Its font and size, 8 to 18, are yours. It counts the session your Session reset defines, the same one the bar numbers use.
Email support, answered by the traders who built it. Bugs get fixed — this tool gets the same updates and support as our paid indicators.
Free, no card, no license key. Download it, import it, and every bar is numbered in under a minute.
Not for you if you want the tool to tell you when to buy and sell. ProBarCounter counts and flags the session correctly; the reading, and the trade, are yours.
Pairs well with Free bar timer and tick counter (Tick/Time Counter) · Free candlestick color add-on (CandleStyler) · Free chart notes add-on (StickyNotes) · Key levels indicator (Intraday Reference Levels)
Tell us what you want to see on the chart. You get a fixed price and a written plan before any work starts.
Request a free quoteEvery tool on this site started as an idea like yours.
NinjaTrader®, NinjaTrader.com and associated NinjaTrader marks are registered trademarks and the property of NinjaTrader Group, LLC. UsefulIndicators is listed on the NinjaTrader Ecosystem; NinjaTrader Group, LLC does not endorse or recommend any third-party product.
