Does the recovery partition matter?

[AppleSmack]

I usually make a bootable clone before applying OS updates – it's useful as a snapshot in case the update breaks some functionality.

When I update from, for example OSX 10.12.4 to 10.12.5, the recovery partition is automatically updated too.

Let's suppose that my bootable clone doesn't include the recovery partition.

If I later restore my 10.12.4, does it matter that the recovery partition is still 10.12.5?

And what about after major OS updates… if I restore my 10.12.x, does it matter that the recovery partition is 10.13.x?

Edit: MBP 2016, Sierra 10.12.5

 

[Weaselboy]

If I later restore my 10.12.4, does it matter that the recovery partition is still 10.12.5?

No it won't matter.

And what about after major OS updates… if I restore my 10.12.x, does it matter that the recovery partition is 10.13.x?

When you do a full macOS version update like from 10.12.x to 10.13.x if no recovery or an old recovery partition is found, the OS installer will create one for the new version.

 

[AppleSmack]

Thanks @Weaselboy.

When you do a full macOS version update like from 10.12.x to 10.13.x if no recovery or an old recovery partition is found, the OS installer will create one for the new version.

If I restore from my 10.12.x bootable clone, and do NOT run the OS installer (because I wouldn't need to)... are there any potential problems with using OS 10.12.x with the 10.13.x recovery?

 

[Weaselboy]

If I restore from my 10.12.x bootable clone, and do NOT run the OS installer (because I wouldn't need to)... are there any potential problems with using OS 10.12.x with the 10.13.x recovery?

Just normal operation, no... but some features like Filevault require the recovery partition and I'm thinking (not sure) having a complete version mismatch like that would cause Filevault not to work. But otherwise no. You can have no Recovery partition at all and it will run.

 

[AppleSmack]

Thanks for your answer @Weaselboy, I'll chance and see what happens, as I'm not using FileVault at the moment anyway.