Turn off Desktop & Documents Folders on your Mac
Learn how to turn off Desktop & Documents Folders and what happens to your files and folders when you turn off Desktop & Documents Folders, iCloud, or iCloud Drive.
How to turn off Desktop & Documents Folders
From the Apple menu , choose System Settings.
Click your name, then click iCloud.
Click Drive (or iCloud Drive).
Turn off Desktop & Documents Folders.
Click Done.
What happens when you turn off Desktop & Documents Folders
When you turn off Desktop and Documents Folders:
Your files saved to your Desktop and Documents folders stay in iCloud Drive.
New Desktop and Documents folders are created locally on your Mac in the home folder. The folders are empty.
If you want to move files from iCloud Drive to your Mac, you can select your files and drag them to where you want to keep them.
New files save to your local Desktop and Documents folders.
What happens when you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud
If you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud, new Desktop and Documents folders are also created locally in your home folder. If you want to move files from iCloud Drive to your Mac, you can select your files and drag them to where you want to keep them.
Keep a local copy of your files
You can also choose to keep a local copy of your files that are in iCloud Drive. If you keep a local copy of your files, they copy to a folder called iCloud Drive (Archive) in your home folder.
Find the iCloud Drive (Archive) folder
Open the Finder.
Under Locations in the Finder sidebar, select the Home folder. It's named with your user name.
Look for iCloud Drive (Archive).
Copy files to or from the iCloud Drive (Archive) folder
Select the file that you want to copy.
Press and hold the Option key while dragging a file to or from the iCloud Drive (Archive) folder.