I have a standard 5GB iCloud account that I was not using except for calendar and contracts. All of a sudden all my data files had the cloud symbol beside them. When I tried to turn off iCloud backup of my documents folder, all 400GB of my files were deleted. Why would iCloud upload my files when there was no capacity, and then permanently delete them?
Mac Studio, macOS 15.5
Some of what you say is rather confusing. There's a difference between turning off syncing of Desktop & Documents, and turning off iCloud Drive. You say "turn off iCloud backup," and that's a different thing altogether.
As muguy said, if you turn off syncing Desktop & Documents, then the folders remain in your iCloud Drive with all the contents, and new empty D&D folders are created in your user folder, back to normal. If you want, you can copy the stuff from the non-synced folders in iCloud Drive to the new folders.
If you turn off iCloud syncing altogether, then all your stuff is saved at iCloud.com, and you could download your files from there to your computer. Downloading over the internet seems awkward to me, so personally, I would copy everything to my computer before turning off iCloud. Like between any folders on a Mac, if you drag stuff from the iCloud Drive folder to your user folder, then it will be moved rather than making an extra copy.
You might look at this:
Understanding iCloud Drive - Apple Community
It wouldn't. Any files remain on your Mac and sync to iCloud. If you had enabled desktop and documents, and subsequently turn it off, your files are moved to iCloud Drive only.
The problem is that I had 450GB os data but only the standard 5GB iCloud plan. When iCloud uploaded all my data and I subsequently turned it off, all my data files disappeared from my computer and iCloud only shows empty folders. Where did my data go???
icloud deleted all my data files on my mac studio
