To provide a suction recovery method of an ink jet printing apparatus by which ink can be securely filled to an ink flow path and a nozzle while minimizing an amount of ink discharge during a suction recovery to prevent an adverse effect such as invited bubbles. The suction recovery method firstly performs the first suction step for generating a negative pressure for sucking a filter section for separating bubbles from the filter section. Thereafter, a second suction step is performed to generate a negative pressure for sucking an ink in the ink flow path and a large nozzle. Thereafter, a third suction step is performed to suck ink from a small nozzle.