A sheet feeding apparatus that is capable of driving a motor without causing step-out even when a cheap PM type stepping motor is used for a sheet feeding unit. A sheet feeding unit includes a tray that stacks sheets, a sheet feeding mechanism that conveys the sheets, a lifting mechanism that lifts the tray, a stepping motor that drives the sheet feeding mechanism and the lifting mechanism, and a switching mechanism that switches an operation of the sheet feeding mechanism and an operation of the lifting mechanism according to a rotating direction of the stepping motor. A control unit changes the number of pulses of initialization of the stepping motor according to whether the sheet to be fed is a sheet after excitation current for the stepping motor is switched on from off and whether the lifting mechanism operates after feeding a previous sheet.