Patent ID: 7620340

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image bearing member which bears a toner image; a transfer member which transfers the toner image on the image bearing member to a transfer material; a cleaning blade which is brought into contact with and separated from the image bearing member and which removes transfer remaining toner remaining on the image bearing member where the toner image is transferred; and executing means which executes a toner cleaning mode such that the cleaning blade is separated from the image bearing member so as not to remove a part of the transfer remaining toner of a first toner image on the image bearing member, and when cleaning a second toner image formed on a downstream side of the first toner image, the cleaning blade having been separated from the image bearing member is again brought into contact with the part of the transfer remaimng toner of the first toner image remaining on the image bearing member and removes the second toner image.