Where are my documents on iMac?

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iMac-21.5"(2017):OS Catalina 10.15.2 IOS13.3 iPhone 8+ iPadpro v2
Recently signed out of icloud and then back in. I saved nothing on iMac as it was all in icloud. Running Catalina. Now, however, I see no documents nor do I see what used to be on my desktop. I opened preferences, apple id, check to store docs in icloud. Also sure that it is checked in internet accounts. Am I missing another box somewhere I should check? When I look at my icloud via safari, I see all my docs are in the cloud---just not showing on my desktop or finder. When I choose icloud drive in the finder, I see both documents & desktop with little clouds, but no data
 
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MBP Retina mid 2015 15.4" 16GB 2.5 GHz OS Monterey; iPhone 12 128gb; iPad Mini 5, 64gb
If you're storing all documents in the cloud, why would you expect to see them on your desktop or in finder?
 
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As Sue pointed out, if you chose to store your documents in iCloud, when you log out, they are not available to you. Log back into iCloud and you should be able to see them again. However, if you want them on the iMac, then you will need to log into iCloud, then when they show up again, you will need to copy them over to a different folder or external drive, then log out of iCloud and they will be in that different folder or external drive. That's how iCloud storage works.
 
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Sue (badshoehabit) & Jake (MacInWin),
I have my documents showing in the toolbar of my finder even though I save my desktop & documents to icloud. I was trying to solve a problem that was not really related to my documents but one of my attempts at solving had me turning my icloud off and on. When I turned it back on, I was not able to view my documents in my finders toolbar. I also noticed the folders I had on my desktop were also missing. I knew the info was still in icloud as I was able to access them via Safari, just not from the finder. Finally, after just walking away from the iMac, hours later I noticed that the icloud drive folder in my finders toolbar indicated it was downloading and then the documents and desktop items showed. Why this took so long to happen makes me ? Catalina's pretesting. Thanks for your input.
 
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Downloading and syncing the folders is a low priority task so that it does not interfere with what you might want to do with the iMac. They disappear instantly, as what you see in Finder are not the files, but links to the files and the links are broken as soon as you log out. Then on log in, they start to appear, but as I said, with low priority. This is not a new thing with Catalina, it's how it has worked from the beginning. And it's why I don't do that. I want my files on my machine.
 

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