lost files from icloud drive (my thesis that i have to defend next week)

i was trying to get out of icloud drive to start using one drive. i saw on the internet that i could move my files into de download folder because it doesn't upload the content so i could save everything there and disable icloud drive so i wouldn't lose my files. The thing is, i didn't have enough space locally to save everything so it didnt download correctly but my folders moved to the download folder, only with empty files. I panicked and move the most important one (my thesis) back to the desktop folder and there is nothing there. Is there a way that i could recover everything? it is the work of more than 3 years please help