To put it simply; what you do to the present, can't effect the past. And since wherever you are in the moment is the present. So if you're in 2023, and go back to 2012, you're experiencing 2012 in the present, because it's where you are. There are still people in 2023, which is a place/time that you were just previously at.
Imagine six pieces of very long string with one bead on each string. this is the timeline. The stones will move along the string as time progresses. But in 2018, when Thanos destroys the stones, he takes them out of a solid form, the stones are still there, just not usable.
To get a stone from before it was reduced to atoms, you must go to a time before it happened.
If you go to 2012 to get, say the mind stone, you have two options, branching the timeline to remove it, (Cut the string to slide the bead off) or you can stay with said infinity stone until your present day, (sliding the the bead off the end)
If you remove the infinity stone/bead from the timeline you have to cut the string, preventing that timeline from effecting the main stream.