saved docs

Per Apple:

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.

I’d make an extra copy of everything, before shutting off iCloud Desktop. Back up your entire local environment using Time Machine or equivalent, and back up all of what’s in iCloud Drive, etc.

If you are iCloud Drive is turned as on https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204025

And desktops and documents box is checked https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206985

The documents are saved both in iCloud Drive and www.icloud.com

If you want to move documents from iCloud Drive to Macintosh HD , in finder under iCloud Drive drag and drop documents towards folder Macintosh HD see the screen shots .

This is just done by creating an untitled folder , if you had created documents with Microsoft office it will also work .

Generally in system preferences > iCloud if iCloud Drive box is unchecked an options comes to click on keep a copy , by doing so , the documents are archived in home folder .

Unless you have Documents and Desktop syncing enabled in System Preferences/iCloud/iCloud Drive/Options, the files are saved on your hard drive.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then Mobile Documents.

Personally, I would copy them from iCloud Drive to an external drive, then verify that everything is present. After that, turn off iCloud Drive and put them back where they belong.