Only able to find half of my files after turning of icloud sync

If you open system preferences > iCloud and uncheck the box of iCloud Drive a pop up window appears , showing to keep a copy of documents , and remove from the Mac .

( a ) if you had clicked on keep a copy , they will be archived in home folder that can be viewed by clicking on finder in the dock , take cursor on top menu bar > Go > Home > your user name > iCloud Drive ( Archive ) .

See the last paragraph of the article https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206985

When you again double click the empty iCloud Drive box it will get checked , the same files will be replaced in desktops and documents / iCloud server but it won't reduce the space .

Let the icloud drive be turned as on https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchle5a61431/10.14/mac/10.14

First create more space https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT201318

Then archive the precious data https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204055

Reduce the iCloud storage space .

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204247

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/macbook-air/apdb468896e0/2019/mac/10.14.5

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT206996

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/system-information/syspf5a64aa6/mac

Then if you wish downgrade the storage plan https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT207594

Note : either you purchase a new storage plan / downgrade it , yet the precious data is with you and archived .