Is it safe to remove EFI partition

[wisestar]

Hello, I bought a MacBook 12 retina, and decided to do a clean install. I know the recovery partition can be removed safely but there is a EFI partition which I wonder if I can delete as well?

I checked there is no EFI partition on my 2011 MBA, I don't know if it will affect firmware update in the future (googled Effect on EFI)

 

[laurihoefs]

Hello, I bought a MacBook 12 retina, and decided to do a clean install. I know the recovery partition can be removed safely but there is a EFI partition which I wonder if I can delete as well?

I checked there is no EFI partition on my 2011 MBA, I don't know if it will affect firmware update in the future (googled Effect on EFI)

You can delete the EFI partition, but Disk Utility creates a new one when you create a new HFS partition.

Your Air has an EFI partition too, it's just hidden.

 

[fatefulwhisper]

Hello, I bought a MacBook 12 retina, and decided to do a clean install. I know the recovery partition can be removed safely but there is a EFI partition which I wonder if I can delete as well?

I checked there is no EFI partition on my 2011 MBA, I don't know if it will affect firmware update in the future (googled Effect on EFI)

I would leave it. According to this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_partition

On Apple–Intel architecture Macintosh computers, the EFI partition is initially blank and not used for booting. However, the EFI partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates; specifically, it places a firmware flash utility (EFI binary) and data file (FD – "Firmware Device") in the directory EFI/APPLE/FIRMWARE which is then run when rebooting the system in "flash firmware" mode.

The system will still boot after the EFI partition is deleted, in which case the boot manager will allow users to choose whether to start a Boot Camp partition or the default Mac OS X, but firmware updates will fail.

 

[wisestar]

Thanks for the info

 

[Nermal]

If you wipe the entire drive (eg. by setting it to "1 Partition") during installation then the installer will create a new EFI partition anyway.

 

[wisestar]

Thanks for the reply! Got it!