NinjaTrader 8 · Market Replay

How to Get NinjaTrader 8 Replay Data Older Than 90 Days

If you've ever tried to replay a setup from six months ago in NinjaTrader 8 and found the date simply won't download, you've hit the 90-day wall. It's one of the most common frustrations for traders who backtest and practice on Market Replay — and there's no setting inside NinjaTrader that turns it off.

Here's why it happens and every realistic way around it, including the free ones.

Why NinjaTrader only gives you 90 days of replay data

NinjaTrader's Market Replay — the Playback connection that lets you trade a past session tick-by-tick — pulls its data from NinjaTrader's own servers. Those servers only keep roughly the last 90 days of replay data per instrument. Older sessions aren't hidden behind a paywall; they're simply not retained server-side, so when you ask for a date past the window, there's nothing to download.

NinjaTrader's official position has been consistent: they supply up to about 90 days of market replay data, and that's it. So if you want to replay older dates, you have to get that data somewhere other than NinjaTrader's download button.

Your options for getting replay data past the 90-day limit

There are four realistic paths. Two are free, two cost money. None of them are "hacks" — they're just different ways to get a .nrd replay file into your NinjaTrader replay folder.

1. Record it yourself, going forward (free)

NinjaTrader can record market replay data locally as it happens. If you keep NinjaTrader connected to your live data feed with the instruments you care about loaded, it captures each session's replay data and saves it to disk — building your own archive day by day.

The replay files land in:

Documents\NinjaTrader 8\db\replay\<instrument>\<YYYYMMDD>.nrd

The catch: this only captures data from the day you start recording forward. It does nothing for the six-months-ago setup you wanted today. To build real depth, you'd have to leave NinjaTrader running and connected essentially every trading day, indefinitely, without missing sessions. It's free, but it's a chore that never ends — and a single missed day is a permanent hole.

Best for: traders who are patient, disciplined about uptime, and only care about building history from now on.

2. Pay for a tick-data feed (Rithmic or Kinetick)

Real-time data providers like Rithmic and Kinetick offer tick data subscriptions that include history. These work and they're reputable, but they're full live data feeds — you're paying roughly $55–60/month for real-time market data and a lot more capability than "I just want to replay old sessions."

Best for: traders who also need a live data feed anyway and don't mind the price.

3. One-time bulk data packages

Some sellers offer a one-time "bulk download" of historical data. The common gotcha is a limited download window — you typically get 30 days to pull everything, and once that window closes, you can't go back for dates you missed or new sessions. There's no ongoing archive.

Best for: someone who wants a fixed chunk of history once and never again.

4. A dedicated replay archive

The last option is a service that maintains the replay archive for you and lets you pull any date on demand. Full disclosure before I describe this one: I built ReplayFutures, so I'm not a neutral party here. I'm including it because it's the category that solves the exact problem this article is about, and you should know it exists alongside the free options above.

ReplayFutures keeps an 18-month archive of tick-by-tick replay files for 18 CME futures (the index futures go back to 2023), refreshed daily. You install a small NinjaTrader addon, pick an instrument and date, and the .nrd file downloads straight into your replay folder — then you connect to Playback and trade it like any NinjaTrader replay session. It's $29/month (less than half a Rithmic or Kinetick feed) with a 7-day free trial, and any files you've downloaded keep working even if you cancel, since they're standard NinjaTrader replay files.

Best for: traders who want depth today without leaving NinjaTrader running forever or paying for a full data feed.

How to load an older replay file into NinjaTrader 8

However you obtain the .nrd file — self-recorded, from a feed, or from an archive — getting it into NinjaTrader works the same way:

1. Place the file in Documents\NinjaTrader 8\db\replay\<instrument>\<YYYYMMDD>.nrd.
2. In NinjaTrader, open the Connections menu and connect to Playback.
3. In the Playback control, the date you added will now be available to load.
4. Press play and the session runs tick-by-tick, exactly like NinjaTrader's built-in replay.

That's the whole trick: NinjaTrader doesn't care where the replay file came from, only that a valid .nrd is sitting in the right folder.

Tick replay vs. bar replay: what you actually need

A quick but important distinction. Tools like TradingView's Bar Replay step you through historical OHLC bars. That's fine for chart-pattern practice, but it can't reproduce order flow — there's no real bid/ask movement, no DOM, no tick-by-tick fills.

NinjaTrader Market Replay is true tick data: the actual recorded ticks (and depth, where the original session had it). If you're practicing order flow, DOM reading, or precise entries and exits, you need genuine tick replay — which is exactly what the 90-day limit is restricting your access to. Any solution you choose for older data should be real tick replay, not bar data dressed up as replay.

A note on who wrote this