Unticked 'iCloud drive', files gone in finder as expected yet no new free disk space, how to fix?

After running low on HD space, I decided to purge local copies of iCloud files by simply unticking the option in 'settings - iCloud' Now in Finder I cannot see the files, only a dialog with an option to change the settings. However, there has been no increase in HD free space at all! I have rebooted multiple times, I have even deleted quite a few files just in case it needed space for deletion purposes. Nope, didn't change a thing. This is Mojave btw, so the advice to 'right click undownload' does not exist hence having to take this action. N.B. the files still exist in icloud (which is what I want) I just don't want all the files that I have downloaded over time and for some reason it isn't doing any housekeeping to remove older ones (and yes 'optimise my mac' was also ticked)