We present forms of the classical Riesz–Kolmogorov theorem for compactness that are applicable in a wide variety settings. In particular, our theorems apply to classify precompact subsets Lebesgue space $$L^2$$ , Paley–Wiener spaces, weighted Bargmann–Fock and scale Besov–Sobolev spaces holomorphic functions includes Bergman general domains as well Hardy Dirichlet space. criteria characterize c...