TradingView Volume Indicator: Add, Read, and Use It Right

Most TradingView users add the volume indicator in three clicks and then ignore it. That is fine for a casual chart, but volume is the only thing on a candlestick chart that tells you how much capital actually moved a price level, and learning to read it correctly is one of the highest-leverage things a discretionary trader can do. This guide covers the click-by-step setup, every setting that matters, the Volume Profile and anchored Volume Profile tools, and how to actually use volume to confirm breakouts and spot exhaustion. If you are new to the platform, start with our TradingView tutorial first.

Key Takeaways

• Adding volume in TradingView is a three-click job: Indicators, search “Volume,” click. The harder part is reading what the bars say.
• Volume Profile and anchored Volume Profile are separate tools from the basic volume bars and answer different questions: where price spent the most volume vs how volume distributed since a specific event.
• Volume confirms or contradicts price moves. Breakouts on rising volume hold more often than breakouts on falling volume, and that simple rule alone filters most fake-out trades.

How to Add the Volume Indicator in TradingView

Open any chart on TradingView. Click the Indicators button in the top toolbar (the icon with two stacked bars and a magnifying glass, or just press / on your keyboard). In the search field, type Volume. The first result, labeled simply Volume by TradingView, is the standard volume indicator. Click it once. It loads in a new pane below your price chart, with a green or red histogram bar under each candle.

That is the entire setup. The volume bar height shows total contracts or shares traded during that candle; the color matches the candle direction by default (green when close is above open, red when below).

If you are on the TradingView mobile app, the path is similar: tap the indicator icon (looks like fX) at the bottom toolbar, search Volume, tap Add.

Volume Indicator Settings That Actually Matter

The default Volume indicator has a few settings most users never touch. Here is what each one does and which ones to consider changing.

SMA length (default 20)

The volume indicator includes an optional simple moving average overlay. Default is 20 periods. Lower it to 10 if you trade short timeframes (1-minute, 5-minute) and want the average to react faster. Raise it to 50 on daily charts if you want a smoother baseline. The SMA line is what tells you whether the current bar is “above average” or “below average” volume.

Show MA on / off

A useful toggle. The MA line is what makes the volume pane readable; without it you are eyeballing whether bars look “tall” with no reference. Leave this on.

Bar coloring

Default colors track up bars (green) and down bars (red). If you only care about absolute volume size and not direction, switch both to the same color so your eye stops associating volume with direction.

Show every Nth candle

Default 1 (show every bar). Useful only if you are charting an extremely zoomed-out timeframe and the bars are stacking visually. For day-trading and swing-trading timeframes, leave it at 1.

Volume Profile vs Anchored Volume Profile

These are two distinct TradingView tools and they answer different questions. Both are separate from the basic volume bars covered above.

Volume Profile (basic)

Volume Profile renders a horizontal histogram on the right side of your chart showing where price spent the most volume across a chosen period. The peak of the profile is the Point of Control (POC), the single price level with the most volume traded. The Value Area is the range that contains 70% of total volume.

To add it: Indicators > search Volume Profile > pick “Volume Profile Visible Range” for a profile that updates as you scroll. Detailed walkthrough in our TradingView Volume Profile guide. For a deeper look at order-flow and volume distribution, see our guide to Volume Footprint Charts.

Anchored Volume Profile

Anchored Volume Profile lets you anchor the start of the profile to a specific candle: an earnings release, a key swing low, the open of a session. From that anchor forward, the profile shows where volume distributed. This is the tool of choice for finding key levels after a catalyst, because you isolate the price action that matters.

Add it from Indicators > Anchored Volume Profile, then click the candle you want to anchor to. Pair it with anchored VWAP for a reading of both volume distribution and average price since the same anchor; full walkthrough in our anchored VWAP guide.

How to Read the Volume Indicator

Reading volume is pattern recognition layered on price action. Three reads matter most.

Volume confirming a breakout

When price breaks a level on a volume bar that is meaningfully above the volume MA (think 1.5x or higher), the breakout has participation. Without that volume, the breakout is more likely to fail. This single rule filters a large share of fake-outs.

Volume divergence

Price makes a higher high while volume bars trend lower over the same window. That is a classic divergence: the move is being driven by less and less capital. It is not a sell signal on its own, but it is a warning to tighten stops and stop adding size.

Volume exhaustion

A vertical spike in volume that dwarfs surrounding bars (3x or more above the MA) is often the climax of a move, not the middle of it. Combined with a long-wicked candle in the direction of the trend, it frequently marks reversal pivots.

Tick Volume vs Real Volume (Forex and Futures Users)

Important caveat for forex and crypto traders: TradingView’s volume on most spot forex charts is tick volume, not real volume. Tick volume counts the number of price changes during the candle, not the number of contracts traded, because forex is decentralized and there is no consolidated tape. Tick volume correlates with real volume well enough to be useful, but treat it as a relative indicator within the same instrument, not a precise capital flow measurement. On futures (ES, NQ, CL, GC, ZB) and on stocks, the volume bars are real exchange-reported volume. Tick charts in TradingView are also a separate concept from tick volume; see our TradingView tick charts guide for that.

Common Mistakes When Reading Volume

A short list of traps worth avoiding.

• Comparing volume across different instruments. AAPL volume and SPY volume are not comparable. Always read volume relative to the same instrument’s recent history.
• Treating volume as a leading indicator. It is concurrent with price, not predictive. The pattern is “this move has participation,” not “the next move will be up.”
• Ignoring time-of-day. The first and last 30 minutes of US equity sessions carry the largest volume bars almost every day; that is mechanical, not signal.
• Using basic Volume on instruments where Volume Profile is the better tool. If you are trying to find key levels for a swing setup, the histogram bars under each candle do not answer that question; the Profile does.

FAQs

Does TradingView have a volume indicator?

Yes. TradingView includes a built-in Volume indicator on every plan, including the free tier. Add it from Indicators > search Volume > click the first result.

How do I enable Volume Profile on TradingView?

Open Indicators, search Volume Profile, and pick the variant you want. Volume Profile Visible Range follows the visible window on the chart; Volume Profile Fixed Range lets you anchor to a date span; Anchored Volume Profile lets you anchor to a single candle. Volume Profile is available on Plus and higher plans.

Why does my forex chart show “tick volume” instead of real volume?

Spot forex has no centralized exchange and therefore no consolidated volume tape. TradingView shows tick volume (the count of price ticks per candle) as a proxy. It correlates with real volume well enough to be useful inside one instrument, but do not compare it across pairs.

What is the best volume indicator on TradingView?

For most discretionary traders the basic Volume indicator plus Volume Profile is enough. Community scripts add variants like Volume Weighted Moving Average (VWMA), On-Balance Volume (OBV), and Money Flow Index (MFI). VWAP and anchored VWAP are technically volume-derived too; covered in our VWAP TradingView guide.

How do I add volume to a Pine script strategy?

In Pine Script, the built-in volume series gives you the per-bar volume value. You can use it directly in indicator and strategy logic, for example ta.sma(volume, 20) for a 20-period volume moving average. See the Pine Script TradingView guide for the full setup.