icloud

I'm putting this under "iPhone" since it usually seems to be where the most issues come from. I'll have my iCloud photo set, my info on the contacts, sharing all set, etc. Then for some reason, for example, this morning, my photo in iMessages has vanished. It's on the iPad, but not the MacMini...

In order to attempt to transition from the ITB Mac mini circa 2016 (2014 model) to a MM2 with "just" 512gb on it, I made the decision to put "desktop and documents" in the iCloud. My thinking, since I have 200gb on a Family plan and had only used 48gb to date, that would help. I checked today...

Okay, stupid me. I thought that the iCloud was going to work like dropbox and keep a local copy of all my desktop/documents and upload to the iCloud. How do I get everything back from iCloud onto my MacMini. Simply. When I deselect "desktop etc" I get this: Which is exactly the opposite of what...