The invention relates to a filter apparatus for cleaning particulate contaminants out of a fluid flow, having a plurality of filter elements (34, 60), which, received in filter chambers (12, 14, 32) as a component of a common filter housing (10), group about a backwash device (20), which, in order to receive a backwash volume, has a piston accumulator (56), in the accumulator housing (64) of whicha piston (57) is guided in a longitudinally movable manner, said piston, actuated by a pressure medium, forwarding the backwash volume stored in the accumulator housing (64) to at least one filter element (60), which is to be backwashed for cleaning thereof, via a backwash device (20), which also undertakes removal of the backwash volume from the filter apparatus, characterized in that a specificfilter element, as a bypass filter element (34), which is selected from the plurality of filter elements (34, 60), solely undertakes the particle cleaning after actuating a changeover device (18), and the other filter elements (60) are excluded from said cleaning.