u/Free_Cause_2311

My latest update automatically turned on icloud, then it sync'd and uploaded all my hundreds of photos from my ipad. I turned off icloud and it deleted it all. Years of photos and memories gone! I did get them back and am downloading them to my mac. Now I've noticed this has the same thing. I cant turn each item off without it wiping my hard drives because i refuse to pay a subscription to icloud when I have a top of the line mac with the max storage?