Turning off iCloud and saving photos

[peterjfw]

Hi all, I'm new to this but thought I'd try asking - apologies if there's an answer buried elsewhere in the forum.

It's a simple question, as follows: I had iCloud on for storing my photos, I did NOT optimise storage so I am presuming full copies stayed on my Mac? I have just taken the decision to turn off iCloud and it keeps telling me I have 30, 29, 28, etc. days to ensure I have copies of my photos on my Mac. How do I know if I have? I don't really want to lose the lot!

Thanks in anticipation

 

[PopBodhi]

I turned off iCloud syncing with regard to my photos and they disappeared. I restored from a Time Machine back up and did not activate Apple cloud storage for my photos. Also, now I export my photos to a cloud back up site that isn't linked to Apple.