How to delete empty folders on Mac Desktop after disabling iCloud automatic backup?

Desktop Folders- Okay so anyone using a Mac these days knows about the iCloud and desktop and documents folders being automatically backed up in iCloud. Some people might find this useful but I don't. I prefer to control where my information resides these days to avoid hackers from getting a hold of it and I don't like to load up iCloud with a lot of clutter and use up my space so I have to buy more space. If I want something stored in iCloud I'll do it myself and don't need an automatic function making me do it whether I want to or not. Along with this automated back up system the new OS's have is a very strange feature where if you go into iCloud and delete anything from your desktop or documents file in there it automatically deletes the file from your computer too! I don't see how this is useful at all. You should be able to empty out iCloud and not effect anything on your computer but there's no way to shut this bug/feature on and off as far as I can tell. So, as a work around I just moved all my images, documents and what have you into new folders I created myself on an external hard drive and use those instead of the pre-formatted folders that come with the computer. Then I was able to delete everything I didn't want from iCloud without losing anything or so I thought. It was months ago that I did all this but I remember that during this process some folders got downloaded onto my desktop that I had to put away in the new folders I made and when I did that, copies were made and the original folders were left on the desk top. So, once I was certain everything was out of iCloud and everything was safely tucked away in their new locations locally here, I set about putting all the duplicate folders on my desk top into the trash by gong to iCloud and sing their delta feature so I/cloud got empties and so did my desktop. Mostly that all went well but it took along time and two bad things happened. One really bad, an important image older with all my pictures of work I did for an important customer over the last ten years got erased. I have no idea how that happened but they are no where to be found and I'm learning to live with it at this point. The other not terrible but annoying thing that happened is, two folders got left on my desk top for some reason instead of being dumped automatically. The OS refuses to let me put them in the trash and get rid of them. They are empty folders that used to have customer data stored in them. I don't know why they came across empty lie that but every time I try and throw them away I get an error message that says I can't throw them in the trash because they have to be downloaded from iCloud first but they no longer exist there and there's nothing in them even if they did. I often use my desktop to work with images as temporary storage to make things easy to find so I thought I might just rename the folders and stash things inside of them now and then but the OS won't let me use them for that purpose either and since up dating to Tahoe one of them now denies me access! It has that red dot with the white line through it on it. It won't let me change permissions either. I didn't do this. It just did this all by its little self. So, after all this context, can anyone help me get rid ion those useless empty riders on my desk top?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: OT: Desktop Folders