Somewhere on your machine sits a .pine file. Maybe you bought it, maybe an AI wrote it, maybe a friend exported theirs.
TradingView has no Import button for it. There's a paste route and a search route, and the paste route starts at a panel that recently moved — which is why the tutorial you watched points at a tab that isn't there.
Where is the Pine Editor in TradingView now?
In the current interface, the Pine Editor opens from the right-hand rail: the Pine icon in the column of tools along the chart's right edge. Click it and the editor slides out as a side panel. That's true on the website and in the desktop app — we verified both this week.
Older guides say "Pine Editor tab at the bottom of the chart." That placement is gone. If you've been staring at the bottom edge wondering what everyone is talking about, you weren't crazy; the furniture moved.
How do I add a script I have as source code?
Paste it over the editor's template, then add it to the chart. The whole route:
- Open the Pine Editor from the right rail.
- Click the script-name dropdown in the editor's header and create a new indicator. The editor fills in a small template.
- Select all in the editor and paste your script over the entire template — not underneath it, not inside it. All of it.
- Press Add to chart — the icon in the editor's header (hover the icons and you'll see its tooltip; in a narrow panel it can fold into the ⋯ menu). The script compiles and appears on the chart.
- Press Save script next to it and name the thing. From now on it lives under My scripts in the Indicators dialog — no re-pasting next session.
Step 3 is where most installs die, and we know because we've worked the support ticket: a compile error complaining about two declarations. That's what happens when a script gets pasted after the template instead of over it — the file ends up with two indicator() declarations, and the compiler refuses both. Select all, paste, gone.
The other classic: a script written for an old Pine version. The first line of any script declares its version (ours declare //@version=6); a years-old snippet from a forum may need migration before it compiles. The editor's error console tells you plainly — read it before assuming the script is broken.
How do I add a community indicator instead?
If you don't have source code and just want an existing tool: Indicators in the top toolbar opens the dialog TradingView calls Indicators, metrics, and strategies. Type what you want in the search box, click a result, and it's on your chart — that's the entire flow.
The left rail of that dialog is the map worth knowing: My scripts (everything you saved from the editor), Purchased, the built-in sets (Technicals, Fundamentals), and the Community shelves — Editors' picks, Top, Trending. Community scripts run from shared code you didn't write; some publish their source openly, some are closed. Which kind you're running matters the day a signal surprises you.
Which route should you actually want?
Where we're biased, priced honestly: our Pine v6 tools ship as .pine source files you add exactly the way §2 describes — paste, add to chart, save — with an AI extension kit so you can make a model explain any line before you trust it. If you want to practice the route with zero spend first, VP Lite is free and full-source; same file type, same two minutes, nothing to buy.
The honest caveat either way: adding a script is plumbing. It changes what your chart shows, not whether the idea underneath has an edge — auditing that is its own two minutes, and it's the better use of your skepticism.
The editor moved; the discipline didn't. Paste over the template, add to chart, save — then judge the script, not the install.
