Hello brianfromwoodacre,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We're glad you've joined us here. Congratulations on your beautiful new iMac. We hope you love it!
We see from your post that while setting up your new iMac you may have inadvertently enabled the feature to Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive. Let's try to reverse that now so you can enjoy your preferred Desktop view.
- Scroll down in the link above to "Turn off Desktop and Documents". We'll include the steps here for your reference:
- "When you turn off Desktop & Documents Folders, your files stay in iCloud Drive and a new Desktop and Documents folder is created on your Mac in the home folder. You can move files from iCloud Drive to your Mac as you need them, or select all of your files and drag them to the place you want to keep them.
- From your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences. Click Apple ID, then click iCloud.
- Next to iCloud Drive, click Options.
- Deselect Desktop & Documents Folders.
- Click Done."
- A word of caution: Be sure to read the note at the bottom of the article to ensure a copy is saved and protect your files:
- "If you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud, you have the option to keep a local copy of your files that are in iCloud Drive. Whether you decide to keep a local copy or not, a new Desktop and Documents folder is created in your home folder. If you choose to keep a local copy, your files in iCloud Drive are copied to a folder called iCloud Drive (Archive) in your home folder. Then you have the option to move any files that were in your iCloud Desktop and Documents, back to your new local Desktop and Documents."
We trust these tips will get your items back on the Desktop, right where you want them. Let us know if you have any questions.
All the best!
