Put iCloud docs back to the computer?

See the following excerpts from Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

(note the first two sections apply to iCloud Desktop & Documents which is an option to iCloud Drive -- you may have only iCloud Drive turned on or you may also have the Desktop & Documents option turned on)

Turn off Desktop and Documents

1. From your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Settings.
2. Click Apple Account. In macOS Sonoma or earlier, click Apple ID.
3. Click iCloud.
4. Under Saved to iCloud, click Drive. In macOS Sonoma or earlier, under Apps Using iCloud, click iCloud Drive. 
5. Turn off Desktop & Documents Folders.
6. Click Done.

What happens when you 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.

What happens when you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud

If you turn off iCloud Drive or sign out of iCloud, a new Desktop and Documents folder is created in your home folder. You also have the option to keep a local copy of your files that are in iCloud Drive. If you keep a local copy of your files in iCloud Drive, they're copied to a folder called iCloud Drive (Archive) in your home folder. You can move any files that were in your iCloud Desktop and Documents to your new local Desktop and Documents.

Go to Apple menu > System Settings > [username] > iCloud > click on "Drive" in the Saved to iCloud section > turn off Optimize Mac Storage > click Done. See the description in the screenshot below for what Optimize Mac Storage will do.

Note that I edited my post to correct it to say "turn off Optimize Mac Storage"

With Optimize turned off, you will have a local copy on your Mac of all iCloud files.

Hi @foxfifth, I'm having his issue too - I DO like that it syncs my files (I'm a teacher, I would hate to lose my files, so I like that it syncs them and updates them) however it keeps uploading them to the cloud, and sometimes it takes forever to redownload them, I've had to keep students waiting 5 minutes for a powerpoint to download from the cloud which is tremendously annoying. Is there a way to keep allowing documents backing up to the cloud but ALSO keep them staying downloaded in my local files?

Oh that's great, thank you! I have tons of room on my mac still so I've been baffled why it's been uploading everything needlessly. Thanks again.