How do I stop my macbook syncing desktop and documents to i-cloud?

The following are instructions on how to turn it off and move your files from Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

Turn off Desktop and Documents

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.

1. From your Mac, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud.
2. Next to iCloud Drive, click Options.
3. Deselect Desktop & Documents Folders.
4. Click Done.

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.

yes, I went back into System Preferences - iCloud - iCloud Drive - Options and made sure "Desktop & Documents" was NOT ticked; then opened Finder and clicked on Documents (which was no longer sitting in the iCloud folder), then entered the Time Machine and found the most recent backup that contained all the documents, selected them all and hit "Restore" and they all copied back across. Then I did the same with Desktop items. Very relieved!

They would be in the iCloud Drive Archive on your Mac, so not sure where you mean you were looking when you indicate that you logged into iCloud.

You need to copy the items from the iCloud Drive Archive back to the Desktop & Documents folder on your Mac:

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.

Go to the Finder and click on your Home folder (the one with your user name and the little house). You should see an iCloud Archive there.

Cheers,

GB

See the Apple Recommended post at the top of the page just below the original post.

GB

im really in trouble, i turned off documents and desktop and lost everything!!! then i turned it back on and half the amount of stuff i had on my desktop is gone. i had loads of photos etc and they have gone. I don't know why eveytime i pt something on my desktop it kept being stored on the cloud and i couldn't access it anyway.. where has everything gone?

thanks Gail - that is exactly what I did - and then I went back to my Finder and all my desktop items have disappeared and so have my documents. I then logged in to iCloud and there are no desktop or documents there either???

So, when you go to your Home folder, you don't see anything similar to this:

I don't use Desktop & Documents, so you don't see a "Desktop" or a "Documents" folder in the second column. If I did, they would be listed like the Pages, or PDF Documents folders are listed, and you would click on the right arrow to see the 3rd column, which would be the documents themselves.

You can also go to iCloud.com on your Mac, click on Settings, and at the bottom of the Settings option you would see the option to "Restore Files". You can click on that to see if you have any files in iCloud that you can restore:

Cheers,

GB

Thanks Gail. I've tried both of those things and no luck. There are no files to restore and there is definitely no iCloud Archive in my Finder.

I have a backup via Time Machine from before everything disappeared - I'm just going to have to figure out how to use it to restore files!!

thanks for your help

Oh, that is most excellent to hear! I'm hoping you created it after you set up and put the data into the two new folders? If so, then you should be able to restore the Documents Too folder.

Best of luck!

GB

thanks Gail - all good - have been to the Apple Store and a very helpful tech guy talked me through what I needed to do to restore from backup - and it looks like I have everything back! Thanks again for all your help

You are most welcome, and I'm delighted to hear that you have gotten it all sorted! Did you restore the data from your TimeMachine backup? Just curious, because whatever your final solution was, it may be helpful to others who might come to this thread for help.

Cheers, and great news!!! 🙂

GB

I have just done the same thing and have lost ALL desktop items and documents and can not retrieve them from anywhere. Where are they?????

thanks Gail. Unfortunately when I go into iCloud in Finder it is empty.

OK, can you look at the path I indicated in the post above yours. You need to go to your Home folder, not iCloud.

GB

sorry, I must be sounding like an idiot. But I've just clicked on the Home folder and there does not appear to be an iCloud archive there.